Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,

where we revisit past episodes for the

most potent and actionable science-based

tools for mental health, physical

health, and performance.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. And now for

my discussion with Jeff Cavalier. Jeff,

such a pleasure for me to have you here.

>> I'm glad to be here. It's amazing.

>> I'm a longtime consumer of your content.

I've learned a tremendous amount about

fitness, both in the weight room,

cardio, nutrition, things that I've

applied for over a decade. One of your

mantras is uh you know, if you want to

look like an athlete, train like an

athlete. And I think that's something

really special that sets aside what you

do from what a lot of other um very

well-qualified people do. What's the

sort of contour of a basic program that

anybody could think about as a starting

place? I I think it's like a 6040 split

which would be leaning towards uh weight

training you know strength and and and

uh and then you know the conditioning

aspect be about 40%. So if you look at

it over the course of a training week, I

mean five days in a gym would be a great

task. And obviously not in the gym, it

could be done at home, but three days

strength training Monday, Wednesday,

Friday, conditioning, Tuesday, Thursday,

you know, two days. It's a it's a pretty

easy roundabout way to split that up. Of

course, depending upon training goals

and as you said, the aesthetic goals

like that will shift dramatically. But

if you want to see the benefits of both,

that's probably the the effective dose

for strength training and the effective

dose for conditioning at the bare

minimum level. If we try to keep our

workouts to an hour or less, if

possible, now depending upon the split

that you're following, if you're on a

total body split, there's just going to

be more that has to be done in a given

amount of time. But in general, when

you're not focused on that one aspect,

but the overall health picture, then you

can get the job done in in under in

under an hour. And again, I always say

on top of if if you want to look like an

athlete, train like an athlete, is you

can either train long or you can train

hard, but you can't do both. As you

start to get older, it's the length of

the workout that actually causes more

problems than the intensity of what

you're doing. Particularly if you're

warmed up properly, like you said, I

found personally that my warm-up has had

to become more of an integral part of my

my workout than it ever has before. In

terms of splits, you mentioned splits.

And so for those who aren't familiar

with this uh term splits, it's really uh

which body parts are you training on

which days. I've seen you discuss, you

know, three days a week, whole body

workouts. I've heard of splits like a

pushing one day, uh pulling another day,

legs another day, a day off, repeat. I

mean, there's so many variations on

this. What's governing the the split? Uh

>> for me, the first rule is will you stick

to it? I don't particularly like full

body splits. I don't necessarily like to

have to train everything. Now, of

course, the volumes will come down per

muscle group. But if you don't like to

do that and you actually don't look

forward to your workout because you're

dreading having to do everything and

feeling maybe too fatigued by the time

your workout's over or the fact that

those generally do take a little bit

longer and don't fit into your schedule,

I don't care how effective the split is.

A split not done is not effective. So,

you need to find one that fits. So maybe

you go into an alternative option like a

um a push pull legs like you mentioned.

That could be done either one cycle

through the week on a Monday, Wednesday,

Friday split or it could be twice in a

week. So you're actually training six

times, you know, where where you repeat

it. You know, pull push legs, pull push

legs or or you know, uh you know,

however you want to do it with either a

day off in between the three days or at

the end of the six days. Um and again,

that actually impacts your schedule.

I've broken that down before where it's,

you know, if you put it in between the

three days, it's good because you're

giving yourself an extra rest day in

between, but it starts to shift that day

off every week as we wrap around. So,

for those guys that were choosing that

seven-day schedule out of convenience in

our heads, you know, it starts to mess

with that off day. So, others like to

just keep it predictably, let's say on a

Sunday and train six days in a row. Um,

but that's a but that's a a better way

to maybe group similar muscle actions

together, which I think I I definitely

prefer that because if I'm going to be

training, you know, pulling movements,

at least there there's a synergy between

them and I feel like I'm looking to

achieve one goal that day. Um, and then

I mean quite honestly, you can go back

to the bros split days and those those

still work effectively. There's a reason

why they worked in the past. Like I

think that science shows that there's

smarter ways to do them these days. Like

you can you can come back and hit a

related muscle. So you could do let's

say biceps on one day and then come back

two days later and do back realizing

again synergy between the the exercises

there. Your biceps are going to get

reimulated again. So you could figure

out ways to make that work. But the

thing that I think is is effective there

is that tends to be one of the ones that

people like the most because they can go

in, they get their pump, they feel good

that it's it's pretty solely focused on

one muscle group.

>> Is that the definition of a bro split?

One

>> one muscle group a day. Yeah.

>> I see. So it's very much geared towards

strength and aesthetics. Really

maximizing chest.

>> Probably probably more more aesthetics

than strength. Yeah. in terms of the

mixing up of cardiovascular training and

resistance training. Um, same day,

different day, which one should come

first, which one should come second? So,

again, I I I think that the, you know,

the bare minimum is probably twice a

week in terms of cardiovascular if you

want to have some semblance of

cardiovascular conditioning, but I think

most people who actually need it more or

want to pursue it more than that are

going to need more time to do that. So,

um, at some point it can't just be

relegated to a day off or a day off from

the from the weight training workouts.

So, at some point it has to occur on the

same day, you know, and in that case I

just like to put it at the end of the

workout because you don't want to in any

way compromise the weight training

workout. The intensity of those workouts

is important. I just like to, you know,

put that at at the end realizing that

even if my effort level is lower or my

output is lower, if it's still placing a

demand on my cardiac output to get that

conditioning effect because I'm

fatigued, it still has a demand on my

cardiac output. So, it's still achieving

its goal, but it didn't interfere with

my main goal of being able to increase

my performance in the gym. And in terms

of the form of cardiovascular training,

I've seen you um do a number of I have

to say very impressive high-intensity

interval type work rather than uh on the

treadmill or out jogging for 30 45

minutes. Is that because you prefer

higher intensity um higher heart rate

type um training? If if we could blend

function across these realms and not

have such a delineation between this is

my weight training and this is my

conditioning but figure out a way to to

blend them together. I always think that

you've get you've got a better

opportunity to get that more

well-rounded result. And I like to kind

of mix up that straight conditioning

work and also some of the footwork, you

know, drills. Like we have we we have

some high expectations for guys that

come into our programs like to just do

some footwork drills

>> like ladders

>> like ladders or or line drills or

something and you know what happens

people become intrigued and interested

like I never I haven't tried this since

uh high school you know and they become

interested in just the challenge of it

and as we become almost distracted by

the challenge we're now like finding

ourselves conditioning you know and and

I always think that's an important part

that sometimes you got to draw people in

um to get to show them what they might

be interested in and from the output or

the effect of it. I just think that when

you're able to blend some of some, you

know, still maintain some of that

strength training into the exercise. So,

as you mentioned, let's say I'm doing

some kind of a push-up or a burpee. I

mean, there is there is a um an anorobic

component to that that is going to be

helpful um that then rather than just

walking or just jogging. Um not to not

to say that that isn't an effective

means for strict cardiac conditioning.

It's a it's one of the ways that we've

had for, you know, centuries, you know,

to do it. But I just think that if we

can blend it, then it becomes maybe a

little bit more interesting and you get

some of those crossover benefits and it

doesn't become so segmented in terms of

what we're trying to do. One of the most

important things I learned from you so

over the years was that if you can flex

your bicep to the point where it hurts a

little bit, like it almost feels like a

cramp or a cramp, or you can flex your

calf to the point where it really cramps

up a little bit, almost feels like it's

nodding up, that's a pretty good

indication that you're going to be able

to stimulate that muscle well under load

if you're doing the movement properly.

How did you arrive at this kind of cramp

test, the cavalier test as I'll call it?

during my workouts, even as a as a young

kid just starting out, I wanted to know

what was supposed to be doing the work.

Once you do that and you start to seek

that out and say, "Okay, well, if the

bicep is what's supposed to be doing the

work, then I want to make sure the

biceps doing the work, right?" So, I

would seek out ways to make that happen

better. And when I was able to do that,

I could feel the stronger contraction. I

was no visionary. I just felt like I I

knew that that was going to be better

for me if the muscle I was trying to

grow was being stressed more. When I was

attempting to do this across different

exercises, I would notice that what I

could do potentially on a curl where my

arm is up, you know, where you asking me

to flex my bicep, that position I

couldn't do if I was, you know, doing a

concentration curl or I couldn't carry

over to a cable curl. And that shouldn't

really change, right? Because the

function is still largely the same.

there's still elbow flexion, there's

still supernation. Like, why am I not

able to do it there? And that's when it

sort of clued into me that like your

mind muscle connection on not just your

mind with one muscle, but on every

exercise matters and it varies from

exercise to exercise. There's a term I

like to call muscularity, you know,

which is a difference, right? It's the

level of sort of resting tone in the

muscle that improves dramatically. You

know, if you can learn how to just start

to engage that muscle better, the

muscularity, the the resting tone of

that muscle is harder. It's more alive.

It's all driven from being able to

connect better neurologically with the

muscle that you're trying to train. When

you're trying to go and create muscle

hypertrophy or even this muscularity

that I talk about, you need to seek ways

to make it feel more uncomfortable,

right? If you don't feel the discomfort,

then you're doing something wrong. And

uh I struggle to this day on certain

muscle groups to still do that even

knowing what I'm trying to work. It's

very difficult for some muscles and for

certain people to do this on certain

muscles. But as you mentioned, practice

does help. And the more you become, you

know, consistent and deliberate with

what you're trying to do, the more of an

of a result you actually get. How do you

assess recovery at the local level,

meaning at the level of the muscles? So

we'll talk about soreness and getting

better, stronger, more repetitions, etc.

And then at the systemic level, at the

level of the nervous system,

>> different muscles recover at different

rates. You may have a bicep that's able

to be trained that can be trained again

the next day, you know, and then the

next day and then maybe you need a day

off after that. That can vary from

person to person for sure and it can

vary from muscle to muscle in that

person over the course of time as you

mentioned because the systemic recovery

is going to impact all those muscles

anyway. But let's say you're

systemically recovering, every muscle

itself is going to have a recovery rate.

And I think that using muscle soreness

as a guideline for that is is one of the

only tools we have in terms of the local

level. That's the one that most people

can relate to and easily identify and

then use that as a guideline. And if

you're training when you're really sore,

um it's probably not a great idea. But

as far as the the uh the systemic, you

know, recovery, grip strength is very

very much tied to performance and

recovery. And when I was at the Mets, we

used to actually take grip strength

measurements as a baseline in spring

training all the time. Now, obviously,

as a baseball player, you're gripping a

bat, your pitcher, you're gripping a

ball. Like, you know, grip having good

grip strength is important. So, if we

notice somebody had a very weak grip,

it's just a good focal point of a

specialized training component for their

>> You do this every day with those guys?

No, we would do in spring training, we

do sort of a baseline entry level

measurement and then we would we would

measure it throughout the season, maybe

once every two weeks or three weeks and

and and you know the idea there was to

measure the recovery. We have found that

with one of those scales, those

old-fashioned bathroom scales, it's a

great tool for just squeezing the the

the uh the scale with your hands and

seeing what type of output you could

get. Imagine the last time you were sick

or when you or just try this, you know,

the next time you wake up in the

morning. When you first wake up in the

morning, you're still groggy. Try to

squeeze your hand. Try to make a fist as

hard as you can. You're going to sit

there angry at your fist because it

won't contract as hard as you know it

can. You don't have the ability to just

create the output. And that is because

in that state, you're still sleepy.

You're still fatigued. You know, you're

you're not even awake at the you know,

the whole level at this point. So, when

you start to measure that on a daily

basis, you can get a pretty good sense

of where you're at. And I think when

people start to see a drop off of 10% or

so or or even greater of of their grip

output, um you really should skip the

gym that day because I don't think

there's much you're going to do there

that's going to be that that beneficial

even if it is the day to train legs or

whatever day it is. I mean there

certainly are more sophisticated tools

too as a as a PT. You know, we have uh

uh hand grip dynamometers. You know, we

can we can measure one side at a time

table, but that comes at a cost. Those

are pretty expensive devices. But if

it's listen, if you were an athlete, you

know, the the 200 300 bucks it cost to

have one of those would be well worth,

you know, the added investment.

>> When's the best time to stretch for

particular types of results? And maybe

you could define some of the different

types of stretching.

>> In general, the two basic forms of

stretching are active stretching and

passive stretching. And your passive

stretching is done with the goal of

trying to create an increase uh in u the

flexibility of the muscle. So whether

you're actually increasing the length of

that muscle, you know, more so what

you're doing is increasing the resist or

decreasing the resistance of that muscle

to want to stay at a certain level of

flexibility. When we can sort of take

the brakes off and allow that muscle to

to allow us more range of motion, we're

inherently increasing flexibility

without necessarily having to increase

the length of that muscle. That is

usually done at a time far away from

your workout because there is a period

of recalibration that is needed after

doing this because you're disrupting the

length tension relationship of the

muscle that causes you to not

necessarily be able to rely on these

I've talked about before stored motor

engrams in your mind in terms of this is

the pattern for how I swing a golf club

say you know and now introducing a

little bit of flexibility or added

flexibility or range because of the

stretch stretching I did before. It

takes maybe a hole or two or three to

match up again. Oh, this is the this is

what he's trying to do. That golf swing

thing that I remembered again. Like it's

not remembering the every component like

I have to bend my right wrist back 10°

and then I have to bend my elbow and I

have to break like your body stores

these patterns for motor efficiency. So,

and when I have to start matching up

that stored pattern with what's feeling

new because of the increased range, I

can impair performance. And again, it

could happen even in a gym workout where

you're talking about your first, second

set, third set, um, where maybe the

repercussions aren't as big because I'll

just do a few extra sets. But in

performance, if you screw up your first

three rounds, you're playing on a PJ

tour and you shoot, you know, you're six

over after three, you're you're you're

done, you know? So we relegate that as I

mentioned sort of towards the end of the

day when it's not going to impact

performance but even maybe have the

additional benefit of creating the the

feeling of length or the increase or

decrease in resistance to this length um

at a time when I know my body is going

to try to tend to heal and heal shorter

never longer but heal shorter. So if I

can introduce a little bit of that extra

uh length or or decrease resistance to

to that length it's a better time to do

it. So I think it promotes a a better

recovery.

>> I'm intrigued by this concept of heal

shorter. So part of the healing and

recovery process means a shortening of

the muscles. This is the tensing up in

sleep. Could you elaborate just a bit on

that?

>> Basically, you know what what's been

shown is that when the the repair

process, muscular repair from, let's

say, strength training during the day,

the repair process usually results in a

muscle that is slightly shorter rather

than increased in length. you know,

muscles prefer to sort of ratchet their

way down into that that uh contraction.

So, when you're sleeping, it it tends to

air on the side of shorter rather than

longer when ideally, we don't really

want that. We want to maintain as much

of that length because with more length,

we actually have more leverage. So,

again, it's just making a a conscious

choice to do it at a time of the day

that makes a little bit more sense.

Dynamic stretching is really not done

for that purpose of trying to create any

type of increasing the the potential

length as you said of the muscle, but

more so the readiness of the muscle to

perform and increasing, you know,

exploring the ends of that range of

motion in a more dynamic way. So you're

not hanging out there and disrupting

that length tension relationship, but

just sort of touching the ends of those

barriers so that when you feel movement

again, it feels looser, it feels more

ready. and and obviously at the same

time warming up, blood flow, all the

benefits we get from just warming up in

general. So like you know that's that's

a series you've probably seen a bunch of

times but like you know leg swings and

butt kicks and you know lunge walking

lunges and those are the drills that

people will do prior to training that

are both excitatory in terms of just the

nervous system but also helpful for just

the general warm-up of the body because

the blood flow but from a muscle

readiness standpoint not impairing the

performance while at the same time

exploring the increased ranges. When I

was working with Antonio Brown, I

remember like he would spend 20 minutes,

30 minutes on all dynamic work. And I've

never seen anybody spend that long on

their dynamic work, but like he said he

just didn't feel right and ready to go

unless he did a lot of that. And I mean,

you know, his his dynamic stretching

routine would be a workout for most

everybody. There's one exercise and one

particular motion that I'd like to um

discuss for a moment because I believe

that learning about this cautionary note

from you is one of the reasons that I've

maintained steady training for 30 years

with no major injury. Uh knock on wood.

Um and that's the upright row. I learned

from you that the upright road

compromises uh some important aspects of

our shoulder mechanics and could be

actually sort of a dangerous movement in

some ways. But so I've always made it a

point now on the basis of of this advice

to really strive for um external

rotation. M

>> please tell us about internal external

rotation. Why this is so important not

just for weight training but as in terms

of posture and mechanics and and not

looking like a a melted candle or

partially melted candle.

>> The shoulder has the most mobility in

the body of any of any joint, but it's

also got the least stability, right?

There's always that trade-off of

mobility and stability. So your

stability comes from, you know, certain

muscle groups. And one of the ones that

the only muscle group that actually

externally rotates the shoulder is going

to be the rotator cuff. Okay? And unless

you are devoted to training through

external rotation and exercises that are

going to externally rotate the shoulder,

you're not training that function. And

it's so easy for us in everyday life,

especially those that aren't training,

to not ever really undergo any of those

stresses that could be beneficial to

counteracting what happens freely and

naturally, which is internal rotation.

So when you think about the imbalance

created just by nature and how we live

our lives, internal rotation far far far

outweighs external rotation. So you need

to address it. And the reason why you

need to address it is because you need

to normalize those biomechanics of the

shoulder if you want their long-term

health. And one of the functions of the

shoulder is to raise our arm up over our

head. And if we do that from an

internally rotated position, we're going

to have a higher likelihood of creating

stress inside that joint. in order to

get normal mechanics and free up the

joint maximally inside, you need to

externally rotate as you raise the arm

up. So, if your muscles aren't firing

and they're not necessarily um as strong

as the internal rotation bias that pulls

them in, you're asking for trouble every

time you do that. Well, this exercise is

literally putting you in elevation in

internal rotation. And if you were to

walk into a PT office and someone said,

"I think he's got an impingement. Will

you diagnose him?" There's a test called

a Hawkins Kennedy test. And I would put

you in the position, I know we're not

visible at this point through the

podcast, but I'll put you in this

position here where I have your arm

elevated and your hand pretty much under

your chin, pushing downward on that to

create that internal shoulder rotation.

Pretty much the exact position that

we're in when we're holding a bar in in

an upright row. Some will say, "Well,

just don't go so high. Go only up to the

level of the chest." But you're still in

this internally rotated position. The

the thing that I think frustrates me the

most about the exercise is that I have

an alternative. And the alternative does

the same thing in terms of helping the

muscles grow by simply fixing the

biomechanics of the exercise, but just

allowing the hands to go higher than the

elbows. So instead of the elbows being

higher than the hand, which drives you

into internal rotation, if the elbow is

lower than the hand, the hand being

higher here, I'm in external rotation.

And I could do something called a high

pull and still get the same abduction of

the arm and still get the same benefits

of the shoulders, the delts, and the

traps without having to undergo any of

the stresses that would come from the

somewhat awkward movement of an upright

row. And people will argue, this is the

way they argue, that I've done this for

30 years and I've never hurt myself. And

I always say yet,

like listen, the goal is to not hurt

yourself ever. So even if you it's sort

of like you know the championship game

you know you might play the game of your

life but if you lose you lost and when

you get into the end of the you know the

record books you still lost. So even if

you had the game in your life you lost I

don't care if you do it for 30 years no

pain you're still doing it and there's

no pain. I'm giving you an option that's

going to give you the same results in

the exercise that you're seeking. That's

why you're doing the exercise without

the the possibility of having the you

know the bad outcome come from it. The

body is like a mirror image. The hip is

like the shoulder, right? The ankle is

the wrist. The foot is the hand. Like

they're they they fun. The knee is the

elbow. They're two hinge joints. They

function that way. Well, with the

shoulder, you've got that mobility that

comes from having all that freedom of

motion, but the stability is lacking.

Well, the same thing with the hip. like

you've got mobility, but if you don't

fully stabilize it by training all the

muscles of the hip and if you don't

strengthen the external rotation of the

hip, then you know you've you're you're

going to have issues like it's not

biomechanically going to work the same

way. If you think of the body as a

series of, you know, bands, you know,

pulling in different directions at

different levels of tension, you know,

you're being pulled into one direction

or the other just by the balance of

tension from one weak area to one

dominantly tight area. And you need to

make sure that you can sort of balance

this out in order to eliminate some of

the adaptations and compensations that

happen. One of the great uh tools that I

I picked up from your content which has

benefited uh I know a huge number of

people is I think I used to hold uh

weights sometimes in the in the tips of

my fingers as opposed to in the meat of

the palm of my hands and I had elbow

pain. Turns out toward the end of my

pull-ups or my bicep work I was letting

the weight or the bar drift into my

fingertips. and the mere um shift to

making sure that my knuckles were well

over the bar or that the weight was

really in the meat of my palms has

completely ameliated that for reasons

that you point out and maybe you could

just share with us why that is. When you

grip a bar, whether it be through a curl

or whether it be and this is mostly

pulling exercises because the tendency

for the bar is going to be to fall out

of your hand, not like with a pushing

exercise where it's kind of you you're

pushing your hand into the bar. So on a

bench press say um that bar can drift

just by gravity doing doing its thing or

fatigue of the the hand grip strength

can start to drift further away towards

the the distal digits right through

those through those last couple knuckles

that we have on our hands though our

hand can still hold it there the muscles

are not equipped to handle those types

of loads and it could start at dumbbell

weight you know 40 lb 30 lb you know

even 25 pounds for some depending upon

their overall strength levels. But then

when you start to apply it to something

like your body weight with a chin up,

right? Because that's natural for the

bar to somewhat kind of float down

towards your fingertips. And it actually

is a little bit easier to perform the

exercise with that sort of like false

grip, like a little hook grip at the end

because you're not going to engage the

forearms into the exercise. You're not

going to start pulling down.

But at the same time, while it could

help you to perform them better by

getting the back more activated, if you

have weakness in these muscles, because

it's not it's not a thing that happens

to every this not one of those upright

row type things where I think this is h

happening to everybody. This is

happening to people that have these

inherent weaknesses in in the these

muscles. You or or haven't done enough

of the gripping in the for in the meat

of the hand, you know, for long enough.

But it starts to put that stress on

these muscles that are illquipped to do

this and it to handle this and it starts

to particularly on that fourth finger

you know which is part of the muscle we

call the FDS of flexor digitorum that is

just too much for it to handle and that

comes all the way down and meets right

at the medial elbow right on that spot

that you can say feels like someone's

knifing you right in the middle in that

medal elbow and and medial epicondilitis

or they call it golfer's elbow is

something that a lot of us deal with in

in the gym. It's one of the most common

inflammatory conditions people get from

the gym. And it all comes from this

positioning of the dumbbell or barbell

or hand on a pull-up bar over time. So,

the easiest thing to do is just grip

deeper so that what you're doing is

you're using, you know, more leverage

from the palm to encapsulate the bar or

the dumbbell or whatever. and you're not

putting that pressure really distally

right on that last digit because that's

where the that FDS muscle is most

strained. So you you're just almost

eliminating that from the equation. and

and and it's one of those exercises that

the load can exceed its capacity pretty

quickly. So that like, you know, maybe

it's only capable of handling 30 lb and

then when you're doing a chin-up and it

goes and it drifts so far that it's now

you, let's say you're a 200lb guy,

you've got, let's say, 100 lb through

one arm and 100 lb. This is simple

simplified math that obviously is offset

by other muscles, but 100 lb through one

arm, 100 lbs to the other. 100 lbs off

of a muscle that can handle 30, it's not

going to take many repetitions to strain

it. and you're going to feel that maybe

by the time that sets over or certainly

by the time that workout's over or the

next day you wake up and you've got that

notable stabbing pain. Whenever someone

feels that, the best thing would be to

determine, okay, what exercises would I

do that were pulling and where the bar

could have drifted deeper into further

from the meat of my palm into my fingers

and figure out a way to deepen that

grip. When that happens though, the best

thing to do with most of these

inflammatory conditions is not do any of

that stuff for a little while. There's

so many other options that you can do

that will train similar muscles or even

the same motion and not cause that

stress. So, I mean, a cable curl would

be much easier to do that on than, let's

say, a chin-up where you don't have the

control over the weight like you do by

moving a pin on a stack. I do have a

question about precision of

recordkeeping. Do you keep a training

journal? Uh, do you recommend people

keep training journals? I think that

anything you can do to increase your

awareness of your performance and also

give yourself some objective goal.

Whenever we have an objective goal, it's

a lot easier to actually obtain it. When

you're just there to get a pump and

you're just there to lift how you feel

that day, um you have to be incredibly

disciplined in all other aspects of your

workout in order to make that effective.

Anything you can do to increase your

awareness of it and keep you on track

with that is like I'm endorsing fully.

Maybe we could talk about principles

around nutrition. What tends to work?

What tends not to work? And um yeah, how

should we think about nutrition?

>> My approach is like I've always been

sort of a low sugar

lower fat guy. That is the best approach

for I believe again in my opinion

personally for the overall big picture

because though the people can take

exclusionary approaches to nutrition and

taking carbs out or you know you know

eating only fats and proteins or again

I'm not saying it doesn't work for you

and if it's the first thing that

actually allowed you to gain control of

your nutrition to the point where you

actually saw results and got to a

healthier weight then I always say then

do it. then do it. But just make sure

it's something you can do forever and

doesn't bring upon other repercussions.

I think that non-exclusionary approaches

to diets are the the most sustainable

for the rest of your life. And when I

and all I'm interested in from a

nutrition standpoint is something that's

sustainable in terms of what you do eat.

How do you structure that? Um, in terms

of when you look down at a plate, you've

done these, you described this before,

but I think it's just a beautifully

simple description because I think a lot

of people don't want to do calorie

counting and all this. And

>> I have what I like what I call a plate

method. And it's just it's just simple

because it works for me. When you have

your plate, you just simply look at it

as like a like a clock, right? And um if

you just make a 920 on the clock, so one

arm goes over to the nine and one of the

arms goes over to 20. because you know

you're going to make a line towards

12:00 too. And the largest portion is

going to be your fibrous carbohydrates.

So that's the the the you know the green

vegetables, right? So whether it be

broccoli or Brussels sprouts or

asparagus, those are the ones that give

us a lot of the micronutrients we need.

They're the ones that are generally you

know accepted as more healthy. Um and

they're also going to provide the fiber

that's going to be both beneficial in

terms of its uh impact on insulin and

also just through filling you up, right?

And then I take the next largest portion

of that and I devote that towards

protein. And I think it's really

important especially for anybody active.

Um the more active you are, the more you

embark on trying to build muscle, you're

going to need to have protein in every

meal. So I have that. And again, you

know, we're talking cleaner sources of

protein, but like I I am you'll never

find like boiled chicken on my plate.

I'll have some sort of fish or chicken

or but I they'll it will be it will be

cooked in a way that's that's like, you

know, it's got maybe some sauce on it or

it's got some maybe it's tomato sauce,

anything to just make it a little bit

more palatable and interesting without

blowing the value of the meal. And then

that last portion is where I put my

starchy carbohydrates. And again, that's

the part that some people will say

exclude them entirely because they're

not healthy or they don't work for you

or they're not, you know, beneficial

long term. For me, like most people, my

body craves those carbohydrates. I

choose things like sweet potatoes, which

is my favorite, you know, or I'll have

um rice or I'll have pasta. I will have

those things. I'm not excluding them,

but I don't put them in the portions

that you would generally find. No plan

is going to work if you're eating stuff

you don't like. It's not going to work

forever. Nothing will. You have to

really enjoy what you're eating. As long

as these these uh variations of this

meal are something that you really enjoy

and there are limited versions of them,

the reproducibility of that is simple.

If everyone listening to this podcast

can figure out their nutrition issues,

this whole world will be different. That

is like one of the largest sources of

disease and and pain and discomfort

because people really struggle with

nutrition. What are your thoughts in

terms of the the nutrition science, the

train the training related effects of um

the post-training meal? Is it something

you think people should pay attention

to? I'm not very dogmatic about what

specifically to eat pre or post, you

know, workout, but I do think you should

have protein um surrounding your your

training, whether that be ahead of time

or after. Protein could be a little bit

hard to digest for some people. So, if

you do that pre-workout and then you're

finding your workouts slogging because

you don't feel good, then certainly you

put that after your meal. But this whole

concept of the urgency of time has

thankfully been removed and we can just

learn to eat a little bit more uh you

know responsibly. And even as far as

pre-workout supplements, a lot of people

don't take them. A lot of people don't

like them. They don't take them. They

don't like they're not necessarily even

being used as the nutritive side of the

pre-workout. They're just more used to

fuel the workout. Um

>> for me it's water and um some form of

caffeine.

>> Yeah. I mean it's whatever you know

again I think it's important I do think

it's important to maintain a high level

of output. So if your pre-workout

nutrition requires a stimulant in order

to help you do that or if your

pre-workout nutrition is causing you to

have a harder time to train because

you're feeling full or stomach ache or

something else then then that that's not

achieving what you're trying to do. The

ultimate goal is to still be able to

perform at the highest level. So,

whatever your nutrition is required to

allow you to still do that, that is

probably the most important factor of

all of it. I hate to say, but it's a lot

less scientific than we want to make it.

And as it seems to be, coming back often

times like the thing that works for you

is really the most important thing

because ultimately getting your ass in

there and doing what you do is is really

the thing that provides the best

benefit. I think when you hear things

like this that like hey that will work

and that will work too and that this

will work too you know rather than the

dogmatic one way only approach um which

can become discouraging for people um

then I think it becomes a little bit

uplifting like well I've never tried

that I've actually never tried a total

body split I've never tried you know

that style of eating like it becomes

encouraging you might want to explore

and then you might finally get locked in

and say I really like this and then

you're off and running

>> on behalf of myself and all the

listeners, I really want to thank you.

And what I love about all of this now

that you've given us is that there's a

there's a backbone of logic, you know,

and and some consistent themes indeed

about consistency. And but the the the

logical backbone, I think, is what um

will enable people to really show up to

the table and stay there uh for training

consistently over time. I'm happy I was

able to make it work cuz I really I've

been watching your stuff for a while and

I really I love the science of it. I

like the way you think. I'm just really

fortunate that I was able to do it.

>> Well, I feel very gratified in hearing

that and and honored to have you here.

So, thank you so much.

>> Thank you.