Jim Hollis, this incredible young

psychoanalyst, came on the podcast. He

basically nailed it. He said, "You have

to shut up, suit up, and show up. Stop

complaining. Somebody's definitely

suffering more than you. Be grateful for

something. You're alive. You have to get

to that level when you're suffering."

>> And he explains how critical this is to

our psyche, how critical it is to our

feelings of selfworth. And then he also

has this other thing about how

critically important it is to ideally

once a day, but at least a few times a

week to get out of the stimulus and

response that is, you know, shut up,

suit up, show up, and really touch into

what's true for you, like what he calls

your heart's desires. Well, you know,

why don't we just do a quick call back?

The Dark Wizard. This sounds like an

Aussie Osborne album, but it's not. is a

documentary and we were [clears throat]

chatting about it before we started

recording since it's top of mind. Why

don't you just describe what that's

about because this involves a character

that I tracked for a super long time.

>> Teen Potter.

>> Teen Potter. So, what is The Dark

Wizard? Why why has it struck you so?

>> Okay. So, I learned about this movie

from Andy Stumpf, who's a former, well,

retired Navy Seal tier one operator who

then set two world records with the Red

Bull High Performance team doing

>> wing suiting,

>> base jumping, wing suiting, whatever you

want to call the squirrel suit.

>> Squirrel suit. and he told me about this

movie, The Dark Wizard, which is about

Dean Potter, who started off as a

climber and then became, people can

watch the documentary, and then got into

parachuting and then what he called

freebasing, which was, you know,

climbing and then jumping off a rock and

parachuting and then eventually wing

suiting. And I won't give away anymore,

but it's a really interesting four-part

series that gets into his mental health

challenges,

>> how he was able to funnel, let's just

call them, the high dopamine, more manic

states

>> into incredible feats of performance,

and then how he balanced out the lows.

But the most interesting part about it

to me is at the level of something I

think about a lot these days, which is

energy. like we're born into this world

with a certain amount of energy and we

think about it as time and longevity,

but there are people that seem to I

don't want to give anything away here

>> about the movie, but there are people

that seem to have more of this thing

that we call energy. And when they're

able to focus it, they take performance

to just outrageously high levels. And

you see how the energy folds back on him

and almost destroys him at times. and

also times when he's somehow able to

harness it and put it to these

incredible feats. But the most important

thing about the film is he talks about

and he demonstrates

through the activities I talked about

before wing suiting etc. He demonstrates

how when you are in competition with

other people it's a misuse of the energy

that can harm you. But when you are

seeking what he calls just seeking

beauty, like really trying to chase the

feeling, the pure experience of taking

that energy and putting it into

something that you love, that's when the

really impressive feats land and that

move you forward. So there does seem to

be something almost spiritual about

whether or not we're funneling energy

into things that really reflect us at

our best. Mhm.

>> what he calls funneling into beauty

versus competition. And competition is,

it turns out, is what destroys people.

And everyone will say, "No, no, no. It's

actually what what allows you to reach a

higher and higher bar. But if you watch

all four episodes, you realize, no,

actually, that's an illusion.

>> And when you get caught in that, you're

limiting your output. You're limiting

your performance." It also has multiple

cameos by the great Alex Honold, and

their competition is extremely

interesting. So, I'll leave it at that.

That's a long teaser, but it's a real

insight into human psychology and

energy, which is something again I'm

just obsessed with because ultimately

it's where we place our efforts at

Foundation.

>> That's all we've got. That's all we've

got.

>> And Dean Potter also fascinating

character. I'm going to watch this. And

if people have enjoyed slacklining, he

helped to popularize slacklining

certainly as cross trainining for

climbing. But overall, and I can't help

but mention the incredible Lar Hamilton

also cuz we're sitting here in Malibu.

So if anybody's ever done

>> stand up paddle boarding, e- foiling,

fewer people will have done towin

surfing certainly, but people should

watch I think it's riding giants about

the early chapters of layered and

standup paddle boarding goes way back,

probably thousands of years, but he

certainly helped to repopularize it. We

are going to talk about all sorts of

frontier topics. We're going to talk

about perhaps some revisions,

>> updates maybe a better way to put it.

>> Yep. And I'm just gonna hop into this

very long list that we will almost

certainly not complete. But let's let's

hop into one that is of personal

interest to me.

And I want to hear how this experience

informed your training. Dorian Yates. So

I have interviewed Dorian, but I've

never met him. You had the chance to

train with Dorian.

>> He is multiple time Mr. Olympia.

>> Six. Yep.

>> Six times. He was legendary not only for

his accomplishments in bodybuilding but

also for in the eyes of many the

bizarness of his training methods which

which in contrast to many were pretty

minimalist in certain respects. So could

you just speak to the experience of

training with Dorian and what you took

away from that in terms of application

to your own training? Yeah, I've had the

honor and pleasure and pain of training

with Dorian Yates once here in Los

Angeles. We did a back workout back and

rear delts workout and then I just came

back from Marbella, Spain where we train

legs together and it's the sorest I've

ever been. And I should say the science

caught up to Dorian.

What Dorian did to train for Mr. Olympia

and what Mike Menser, who I'll explain

in a moment, were proponents of is now

very well supported by the peer-reviewed

data. And a bunch of physio folks are

probably jumping out of their seats

going, "No, no, you don't have to go to

failure beyond failure, and you actually

need more sets." Not all. Ah, but if you

look at their training, which was

essentially a couple of warm-ups, a

light set to just familiarize yourself

with a movement, a medium set, maybe

like 50% of what you would use on your

work set, work set somewhere between,

you know, five and 12 repetitions

typically, and then maybe a third

warm-up for just a couple of reps, kind

of practice sets. And then Menser, Mike

Menser, was a big proponent of one

allout set to failure.

>> Mhm. Turns out that's probably not

enough for most people to stimulate

hypertrophy and strength increases

because it demands so much focus,

intensity, and effort. There's a kind of

a systemic neural fatigue to it. And a

lot of people just can't contract the

muscles with with enough focus and

intensity for one set to absolute

failure to work. Dorian basically is

more proponent of two sets per exercise,

maybe two or three exercises per major

body part. Major body part being quads,

not legs, right? So,

training with Dorian essentially

consists of what I just described, a

couple of warm-ups, two allout sets to

failure or one set and then some

assisted reps or a drop set or a rest

pause where you, you know, rest after

failure and then do a couple more reps.

Now, what's unique about that training

is

you feel very tired at the end of a

workout, but a couple hours later you're

fine.

>> And indeed, if you do it right, you get

stronger. every single workout with the

caveat and Dorian made this clear to me

that about every six or eight weeks or

so you need to come off the gas pedal a

bit and just stay out of the gym for a

week or you kind of do a kind of more

moderate week. Now what Menser and let's

just stick with what Dorian said because

it's let's call it lowish volume high

intensity. What he's a proponent of was

heresy back in the day. Certainly the

opposite extreme would be like the

Schwarzenegger two hours twice a day

type workouts and then people will say

well Dorian was using loads of steroids

and growth hormone etc. The scientist in

me will in no attempt to defend him will

just accurately say what's the one thing

that he was doing differently.

>> Yeah that was part like everyone was and

is taking some testosterone and other

anabolics androgenics and some were

taking growth hormone but the point is

and at the top level all of those guys

have incredible genetics long muscle

bellies. What makes Dorian, even now at

65, he carries a ton of muscle mass.

He's most he's doing a lot of biking,

he's doing functional training, he's

doing a lot of other things, but just

the sheer density of muscle that he's

carries speaks to his genetics and the

amount of training. What I've been doing

for years is the same split. Three days

a week, one day legs including calves.

Rest a day or two. Train chest and back.

Rest a day shoulders and arms and also

some neck training cuz I didn't wrestle.

And you know neck is important to train

especially for guys.

>> Otherwise it looks like the wrong head

is on a on the body. And also as the

upper spine it's important for shoulder

stability etc. But that split most

people say that doesn't square with the

science. What does the science say? The

science says, and this is Brad

Shenfield's work and other people's

work, which is fantastic, which is when

you stimulate a muscle to grow, you have

about 48 to 72 hours in which there's

protein synthesis after the training.

>> Mhm.

>> So, the logic says, well, logically

speaking, you would say, okay, well,

then train every muscle group three

times a week

>> or twice a week. The problem is that

when you do that, you're not taking into

account the other things that you might

be doing. Like, I run three times a

week. one long slow run for about 60

minutes, one high-intensity interval

type training, you know, like sprint for

30 seconds on the assault bike, rest for

30 seconds, and just repeat that six to

eight times, right? Kind of a max heart

rate training, and then maybe one

moderate session of like 20 or 30

minutes of running or biking.

>> If you're doing those other things, you

have to take that into account. And so

what ends up happening if you do this

split of training your legs, taking a

day off, then the next day doing some

sort of, you know, chest back workout,

the next day running for 30 minutes.

Now, your legs, if you train them

properly, are still probably a little

bit sore.

>> Mhm.

>> You go, okay, well, it's not going to

stimulate hypertrophy, but if then you

do a a bike highintensity workout,

you're getting some some stimulus to

your legs. it's enough to carry you to

the next week. So in reality, this

arrangement of three times per week of

resistance training, three times a week

of cardio, you're training everything

directly once a week and indirectly a

second time and you're getting a lot of

cardio. So because all these studies of

hypertrophy and strength training, it's

on a background typically of not doing

any cardio. And so when I look at like

kind of what the science says, of course

it's people are saying, oh, anywhere

from 10 to 20 work sets per week that to

maximize hypertrophy. Okay, 10 sets of

quads per week distributed into two or

three different sessions plus I'm

supposed to sprint

>> outside or on the on the aerodyine bike

plus I'm supposed to do a long run. All

of a sudden you have a collisions all

over the place. So turns out that for

years I was doing this split and then

when I talked to Dorian he's like yeah

that's more or less what I did when he

split things up into a 4-day split.

Wasn't doing quite as much cardio. He's

like yeah it makes perfect sense. Once

directly, high intensity, lowish volume,

once indirectly like when you train your

chest and back, you're hitting your

arms. Then you train your arms directly.

So it's twice a week. [snorts] When you

do the aine bike, there's some stimulus

of like your lats and pushing and

pulling. Again, it's not for

hypertrophy, but it gets you to the next

week. And what I found from training

with Dorian is you think you're training

to failure. You're not training to

failure. And this is the other piece.

People will say, "Oh, the data say two

or three sets taken two like one or two

reps in reserve." Yeah, it's true. You

can get a lot of hypertrophy and

strength increases doing that. Maybe

it's less taxing on the nervous system,

but what is failure? Like if somebody

really put a gun to your head and said,

"Curl that bar one more time or I'm

going to kill your family." You'd curl

the bar. Now, it's not pleasant nor is

it appropriate to think that way in the

gym. And probably some guys thinking

that way in the gym. It's just

impossible to generate that kind of

mental intensity. So you go, "All right,

if you just step back, the way Dorian is

training now, the way he basically

trained for the Olympia, six Olympia

wins, is you train each body part

directly once per week. It gets hit

indirectly a second time per week. You

give it plenty of rest. You're doing

four to eight sets per body part, two to

three exercises per body part. So you're

splitting up those work sets, you know,

yeah, it all kind of works out." And so

this is the the big revision for me is

if you just look at the science, you'd

say, "Okay, 10 to 20 sets, more volume

of these sets almost to failure or even

to failure is maximizing hypertrophy."

Yeah. If you're doing curls and leg

extensions for a study,

>> but what about all the other stuff?

>> Yeah, for sure.

>> Okay, so that's the gist of it. If you

want to look back at this approach to

training, I mean, there are a lot of

examples, but you can go back to Arthur

Jones. Yep. Then Mike Mensner.

>> Y

>> and then of course you have Dorian Blood

and Guts. I remember having that black

and white book

>> that describes some of the training. And

>> for those who may doubt the efficacy of

this type of let's just call it short

duration because you can do what Dorian

recommended. The workouts can be quite a

bit shorter. And in some with a warm-up

it ends up being you do a couple minutes

on the bike, you do your warm-up sets.

By the time you get to the second or

third exercise for a given body part,

you're only doing one warm-up.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. And what I would say is you can

look at now this is somewhat of a

complicated case study but like Casey

Vader with Arthur Jones crazy example

there's some sort of muscle memory which

we won't get into right now that enabled

a lot of those gains but suffice to say

like this type of minimalist training

can be applied in a lot of places and

the I think according to many

competitive powerlifters the best

powerlifter of all time Ed Conn also

pretty similar recovery schedule, right?

And very interestingly similar in terms

of overlap with durian. So what does

your split look like now? So the split I

follow now is essentially the same one

I've always followed and it is and I

want to be clear why I'm saying Monday

or Tuesday because there needs to be

flexibility in one schedule too. This is

important. So, Monday or Tuesday, I

train my legs,

>> calves, hamstrings, quads, maybe some

direct like glute training, but probably

not.

Couple warm-ups, two to three maybe, but

usually just two hard sets to failure.

If I have a training partner, there may

be some assisted reps. So, quads would

be two working sets of leg extensions.

I'll leave out the warm-ups. Two to

three cuz I'm need a bit more there.

Lying hamstring curls to failure. Then

belt squat. My favorite movement. I

actually bought a belt squat machine

because you don't have to load the

shoulders.

>> Which machine do you like?

>> I use the pitch shark and Rogue's got

now one that's kind of more of a

fan-based one. And there are a bunch of

It's a lot of fun to go on Instagram and

some of the the gym equipment assessment

accounts as a whole world. Sorinx has

one. There are all sorts of great ones

out there. I bought the Pitch Shark.

>> I'll reinforce the belt squat.

>> Love the belt squat. It takes a little

bit getting used to because some people

feel as if, you know, it's like jamming

into their hips or something. You can

put a towel there if you need to. I

mean, all the Westside barbell guys

would talk about belt squat. They would

load it up. You can actually march with

it to build build all sorts of

stabilizing muscles. I mean, that's an

incredible cardio workout. You just put

a couple plates on each side and you and

you just march lifting your knees and

like after like a minute, you're like,

"This is this is no way I can continue.

This a great workout." But I end up

doing leg extensions, leg curls, then

belt squat, and then I may throw in a

couple work sets of hack squat and

that's it. And that's Monday or Tuesday.

The day after legs is always a rest day.

Like if you train legs properly, the

next day should be a rest day. You

should need it. Ideally, I would do

sauna and cold that day.

>> These days, I haven't had time. A day

later, I pick systemically, you have to

ask yourself, am I systemically

exhausted? My did my nervous system take

enough of an ass beating on that Monday

or Tuesday that I need two days off

after legs? And if it was very, very

intense, then I'll do some sort of 20 or

30 minute cardio. Typically, it's a run,

not an allout run, not a jog, just

somewhere in between. Probably in the

zone, let's just call it zone 3ish, zone

3, four. Okay? So, you're not sucking

for air, but it's not a sprint workout.

It's not zone two. And then I'll do a

push pull. I'll do a chest and back

workout and neck.

>> What do you use for neck?

>> I have a 4A neck machine.

>> You do? I do. Which brand do you use?

>> Hammer strength.

>> Hammer strength. Yeah. And again, the

reason I'm asking this guys is not to

plug particular manufacturers because

the physics and the geometry and so on

really matters. It really matters.

>> Especially in my experience with

something that has injury potential. I

have a four-way neck machine also.

>> Oh, cool.

>> I do it very very slowly myself. Like

don't overdo it. If you've never trained

neck, do not rush into like high

velocity stuff, but that's why I was

asking it.

>> Neck is very important. I'll talk about

specifically what I'll do if I don't

have access to that. Some people be like

chest and back same day and rear delts.

And yeah, I think of it as like a torso

workout

>> because I'm not a bodybuilder. I'm

interested in posture. I'm interested in

strength. And I'll I essentially do some

sort of pushing movement like a low

incline press and then some sort of fly

type movement. Although sometimes I'll

just do low incline bench press for so

couple warm-ups, two or three warm-ups,

two or three work sets

>> in the failing somewhere between five

and 12 repetitions.

>> Mhm. And then dips. Weighted dips. Big

believer in these. Like I think it's

like an upper body squat, whatever that

means. Weighted dips typically with a

weight vest. And it looks ridiculous.

But the chains are great if you can

throw those on cuz you can like toss one

off and then keep going if you if you

want to keep going. Whereas if you got a

weight hanging between your legs, which

always just feels weird to me anyway.

You're like waddling around the gym.

It's clanking into your ankles. I'll do

some sort of dip. And then I'll do some

sort of row for the back. Typically like

a low row or a dumbbell row, one arm

dumbbell row. and then some sort of

chinning movement, although I put the

chins first because we've all got this

thing of how many can I do? And I

recently bought a Nautilus pullover

machine based on the training with

Dorian. And it's from 1976 and it's one

of only two that still exist. And it's

kind of like some guys like muscle cars.

I like old school strength training

equipment.

>> Dorian loves his pullovers just like

Arthur Jones.

>> And by the way, if you're rowing heavy

and you're doing these things, you're

getting some forearm training. Mhm.

>> But then I'll do the neck training and

I'll either use the four-way neck

machine. Jeff Cavalier from Athlete X

has a great video on how to train with a

plate. You wrap it in a a train neck

with a plate and a bench. So you could

do that anywhere. You wrap it in a

towel. You lie on your side and you're

just you have to be careful about

closing the chain. So you you know you

got one leg down and you got a hand down

on the ground. The video describes it.

Maybe we could put a link to it. One

thing that's very important I learned

about training neck is you need to nasal

breathe the whole time. have your tongue

on the roof of your mouth and make sure

that you're not sticking your chin out

at any point while you're bending it to

the side because then you start getting

clicking in your jaw. And my spinal

surgeon friends tell me that it's a

great way to slip a disc in your in your

neck. The neck aesthetically, like

people don't, it's always weird when

like dudes are talking about aesthetics

like but these days because of the looks

maxing thing and all [snorts] that like

it's it seems to be like more of But

there's something actually very

important to

>> You're not hammering your cheekbones.

No, I'm definitely hing my [laughter]

cheekbones.

>> Come on, Andrew.

>> Nope. Not hammering my cheekbones. I

mean, you know, that is such a wild

thing. Yeah. No, no, no, no. But there

is something interesting. So, from a

strength and stability standpoint,

training one's neck is really important

because it's the upper spine and it I do

think it's one of the reasons I've never

had any shoulder issues and I've got

long arms and everything points to the

fact that I should have rotator cuff

issues. I don't do any direct rotator

cuff work. I think it's because I

started training my neck a long time ago

and aesthetically like you have this

this is a great opportunity to point out

just how uh perfectly constructed you

are Tim Ferrris you train your neck

really if you look ahead at a male face

>> if the neck sort of arrives right at the

sort of like outer right

>> more or less right you know plus or

minus a few whatever millimeters and

more or less at the outer jaw the

outermost point of the jaw below the

ears like touching there you'll notice

like it it looks kind of right.

>> When somebody is really wide and their

neck is not at that point, it looks like

the wrong head was placed on a body.

Then you see Lar Hamilton and you

realize like this dude just has a a

really big neck, but it's appropriate

for his for his body structure. And then

after the neck, so I'll do I don't know

three sets or two work sets per side.

Although you don't train neck the same

way, like to like four reps and all

that. And then I'll do some core work.

And the core work that I'm a big fan of

because you also get some forearm work

in is I'll hang from a bar and I'll do

some lsits

>> and if I've been doing them a lot

lately, I'll do some pikes. Five sets of

five piking your ankles up to your hands

and then slow on the descent and then

into an LSIT if I can. And I'll do maybe

three or five sets depending and then

lower back work. And I have a 45 degree

angle hyperextension and I'm not taking

that to failure. The low back thing is

really important. I found that and there

are a lot of data out there that if you

can strengthen the spinal erectors, your

posture is better, you're more injury

resistant, but that whole workout takes

an hour tops.

>> Mhm.

>> The next day is the highintensity cardio

day, just max heart rate. These days I

got get on an aerodyine bike and I would

say for this for people it's whatever

you can do without getting hurt.

>> So question for you on the aerodyine or

I guess probably

>> assault bike. This is a digression, so I

won't indulge us too far, but to figure

out why the assault bike worked and

caught on where the aerodyine did not,

right? You can look at footage from Dan

Gable, legendary wrestler, working out

on an aerodyine, but it never really

spread until the assault bike

reformatted it, improved it in some

ways. My question for you on that real

quick for people who don't know, you're

using your arms on these sort of

isolateral movable handles that power

this fan. So you can pedal and use your

arms

>> one or the other or both.

>> And I find that my upper body fatigues a

lot faster than my lower body if I'm

trying to do, let's say, like a

Norwegian 4x4 or something like that,

like 4 minutes on, 3 minutes off, or

four minutes on, four minutes off.

Do you find that not to be the case for

yourself or how do you approach it?

Because I've wanted to use the assault

bike. It's now easier to find an assault

bike in say a hotel gym for me than a

stationary bike that fits well

otherwise. How do you approach that?

>> Well, the naming piece is interesting

and maybe we get into this at some point

deeper in the discussion, but naming is

very important and it's not just

important in health and fitness and this

kind of thing. It's it's actually very

important in science and I'm a you know

a student of science as a field not just

the field of neuroscience in terms of

the facts but also you look at the

culture of a scientific field oftent

times the naming is what carries a field

forward very quickly and you go how can

that be aren't these scientists

shouldn't they just be focused on the

data nomenclature is important because

if more people are doing something

>> because they can talk about it to more

people using the language. It tends to

accelerate a field. Sure. Um, also

assault bike sounds cool. Stationary

bike feels like you're just pedaling.

The assault bike is interesting because

I also I get like a lot of lat work from

it. Keep in mind the day before I

trained my chest and back.

>> No, exactly. That's why I'm asking.

>> So, it ends up being a second kind of

stimulus, not a hypertrophy workout, but

you you sort of end up feeling like

almost like a a pump type thing

>> if you do it right. I can't do more than

30 seconds on, 30 seconds off without

experiencing what you experience, which

is that my legs just have all this gas

and my arms, they can just keep going.

It all transfers to the upper body. So,

Norwegian 4x4

>> on on the assault bike just sounds like

torture to me.

>> This workout, if I can, I'll get outside

and sprint.

>> Mhm.

>> And you could do it on a rower. You

could sprint. You know, I think it's

just important because it's a near

allout or allout workout, 30 seconds on,

30 seconds off. Or maybe you jog a

couple laps and then you do a couple,

you know, you do a 400 on the track and

then walk a lap and then do a 400.

Whatever you do for this workout, you

know, you can come up with any number of

different variations. It's got to be

something where you can apply max effort

and not get hurt.

>> Yeah.

>> And then the next day is a shoulders,

arms. You do some sort of pressing. I'm

not big on lateral raises, some sort of

press for the shoulders, you know,

couple work sets of bicep curls, couple

incline curls, some hammer curls, some

overhead tricep extension for the long

head, couple work sets, some bench dips,

and there you go, like bench dips again.

So now you're getting a little bit of

>> other stuff working even though it's not

a allout chest and back workout. And

then the next day, which is typically on

a Sunday, I'll do some long slow

movement, ideally outside. Maybe it's a

walk and a hike with my girlfriend.

Maybe it's I'm rucking and listening to

a podcast if I'm alone. Maybe I'm

jogging in the sand. Like it could be a

long bike ride. Just something like

there's something so nice just starting

the week.

>> Jogging in the sand sounds miserable for

long.

>> Slow. It's a slow plot. You're a mule. I

like to think of like you're kind of a

mule or I'm a mule.

>> That's going to be my clip for the

teaser

>> with the [laughter] mule.

>> I'm a mule. No, I'm kidding. Cool. No,

that works. That works. That works for

me. And you know, the real hard part

about that workout is not going faster.

>> It's pretty easy to jog and then walk.

Jog and then walk. is probably

beneficial. Yeah.

>> But that workout is as much for the

mental stimulation, but it's also

there's something so nice about going

into the work week.

>> Maybe it lands on a Monday, I don't

know, but typically for me it lands on a

Sunday because there's something so nice

about going to the work having spent as

much time as possible moving outdoors

the day before. But I do this and it

ends up being six workouts a week, but

some are very, very short. None of the

resistance training stuff is terribly

long. You're done in an hour. So unless

you're waiting for equipment and you

know at 50 I'm continuing to you know

get stronger. I'm not you know

outrageously so and it just works. It

just works and it's worked for everyone

that I know. Now one key thing and a lot

of people will what I call they'll kind

of geek this and they won't do compound

movements. You can't do lateral raises

and and I do some rear delt flies on the

whatever one or the either chest and

back day or the shoulders and arms day.

You need that for shoulder posturally,

aesthetically, etc. But people think,

"Oh, I can do leg extensions, leg curls

to failure once a week." No, you're also

hack squatting and belt squatting or hat

squatting and front squatting to failure

for a couple sets.

>> That's intense. You need to do the

compound movements. There's no world

where you can just, you know, do

isolation movements this way. And that's

the thing that sometimes gets forgotten

in the Yates style training. he was

doing a lot of compound movements and

he's still a proponent of that.

>> Well, let's let's hop around and we may

come back to training.

We spoke some time ago about

psychedelics with a focus on MDMA and it

seems like you may have some revised

views, maybe a few caveats. I would be

interested to hear your current

thinking. So, this is an area you've

spoken about and and thought about

pretty extensively and and or as I'm

more of a newbie, as we talked about

last time, in case people didn't hear

that conversation, you know, growing up,

I made the mistake, it was a truly a

mistake of taking some psychedelics at a

at a very young age, quote unquote

recreationally,

LSD,

>> psilocybin, not giving any thought to

like what the long-term consequences

might be. Fortunately, I didn't feel any

long-term consequences, but I had to

enough bad trips, meaning one.

Robin Carter Harris would say, "You

can't have a bad trip. There's no that

you can have a bad trip, Robin. I've had

one. It sucks. You're in the pit for

hours and hours. There's no guide there

if you're doing it recreationally as a

teen. The brain is hyperlastic." It made

me very, very cautious, almost paranoid

about psychedelics for many, many years.

Then also the last time we spoke I

talked about how in an effort to resolve

what I felt were some long-standing

psychological traumas I did clinically

supported MDMA standard kind of MAPS

protocol like take forget the milligram

dosage maybe take like

>> probably 125 something like that

>> yeah and sometimes there's a booster

about 90 minutes in you have someone

there you're doing talk therapy before

during and after tremendously helpful to

be able to feel my feelings to be able

to recognize

what a whole body feeling was about. I

mean, there was never the experience for

me of wanting to

dance or have sex while I was on. It was

like, no, there was some shaking. There

was some a little bit of that, but it

was a very, you know, it's an

impathogen, I think, as you know, it's

not a psychedelic, technically an

impathogen, and raises both dopamine and

serotonin simultaneously, which is very

unusual for any compound to do, and

raises oxytocin quite dramatically. The

data actually say the impathogenic

effect of MDMA is not due to oxytocin

through a kind of sort of good control

where you just give oxytocin and you

don't get the same clinical effects. But

you could argue the cocktail effect, the

synergy might be important. So I did

that a few times. I think it was a total

of four times separated by a number of

months or a year clinically supported.

In any event, after a period of doing

that, I took a break and

on the suggestion of the same clinical

group decided to partake in a psilocybin

experiment and it was highdos

psilocybin. Now psilocybin as you know

leads to I think in the words of our

friend Paul Kiy it almost like recedes

the waterline on the on the unconscious

mind. So what I found in psilocybin was

because my brain often thinks in

analogies like this just how I structure

my thinking it's reflexive for me offs

psilocybin almost everything that came

to me in those sessions was kind of

symbolic representation analogies for

somebody else who who represents their

world not that way maybe musically or

through sematic experience it's likely

that from my understanding that they

will experience insights

through those same kind of

representations.

What I found from psilocybin

work was

it was exquisite at revealing to me the

structure of my thinking and the ways

that some of the patterns in my life

that were not serving me well

how they were structured. It was sort of

like oh coming out of it there's a like

wow there's this form of self seduction

that I do which takes actually eight

forms which

look the following way in my life I can

be seduced by the enchantment of some

sort of promise of a future outcome

that's not realistic and you can see

that I'm just kind of giving one example

and once you see that you can't unsee it

and that for me was an incredible

experience I do think it was important

to keep a journal afterwards to take

notes while off

the drug. And for me that was very very

helpful at allowing me to understand the

structure of my thinking both for things

that serve me and don't serve me. I will

say and this is getting a little you

know well as long as people are doing

like live streams of taking psychedelics

I feel very I feel on very solid ground

but who knows.

>> Well just wait until the second half of

this conversation.

>> Yeah. Exact. [laughter] Exactly. I mean

I don't want anyone to run out and take

these things without clinical support.

There are a number of people who

shouldn't be taking them and all the

usual caveats apply young people etc.

But the real like wo

one session type rewiring which was the

hardest work I've ever done having done

lots and lots of therapy. But the

hardest work I've ever done was to take

MDMA

and then a couple hours later take a

high dose of psilocybin. And I've only

done that twice. By the way, if I ever

try and run for public office, any

mistakes I make, they'll attribute to

this. By the way, I've seen that

publicly. But I'm going to make it very

clear right now. Not only am I not going

to run for office, I'm running from

office. So, you know, there's been some

speculation, but the interesting thing

was no two days later drop, which you do

experience with MDMA. I just did not

experience that if I took psilocybin

with it. Remarkable. Had some of my best

workouts, work weeks, etc. It's like, oh

wow, that can be avoided through this

thing. But what was remarkable is on

MDMA as an impathogen, you feel very

good about most anything you focus on.

You can find the peace in it. You can

find the love in it. Could be this yerba

mate, which I happen to love, but you

like would really love. That's the

danger, right? You can get pulled into

these force fields of thinking

something's really important. It might

not be that important when the session

is over. That's why I think it's very

important to have a trained guide with

you.

But there's the drop.

Psilocybin for me was a very dark and

harrowing experience.

>> Lot of purging, a lot of vomiting.

>> Really

>> about halfway through.

>> These weren't enormous doses. They

weren't small either. It was 4 to 5 g.

>> Just to be clear for folks. Yeah. Of

dried like silos mushrooms.

>> So for me,

>> it was terrifying to be on psilocybin

alone. It was extremely difficult. And

the combination of the two, it was sort

of like having my really good friend Rob

Moore in there with me going, "You can

do this." Now, Rob wasn't in there,

[laughter] so I'm just sort of half

joking because he's here in the room

with us now, but it was like, "I can do

this. I can lean into the hardest work."

I'm going to give an example so it's not

too vague.

>> Yeah.

>> I'd spent a fair amount of time thinking

about some of the harder things that had

happened in my childhood, in my life.

Some of which were self-inflicted, some

of which were not self-inflicted.

And I'd come to peace

about those through the work I describe

standard psychotherapy lot of journaling

time MDMMA psilocybin those separately

taking them together I had this voice in

my head that was like it's time to do

the real work and I was like oh goodness

>> and I said out loud like I don't want I

thought we're just going to like listen

to Grateful Dead today and you know the

person helping me was like no that's not

how this works. You know that. And I'm

thinking, I don't want to do this. I

really And I don't even know what this

is. I just know there's something there

that's

>> And I'm like, oh [ __ ] And I think it is

important for people to understand this

cuz it is it can be very, very scary and

you feel it sort of coming at you like a

storm and you can push it away. I could

have spent the entire time listening to

the Grateful Dead. Not a huge Grateful

Dead fan, but you know, people have

encouraged me to listen to it, so I've

been doing it. I like it. But I could

have done that, but I didn't. Instead, I

was like, "Okay,

with those two compounds in me, I was

like, I can do this. I've got myself

held. Like, I'm my own friend. That's

the impathogen. I can do this." It

wasn't this like, "All right, let's go.

Like, let's fight." And that session

took me through a brutally hard voyage

of thinking about all the things that

didn't happen, all the things that I

would

wish had happened.

>> Mhm.

>> That I was in no position to make happen

for myself. Heavy, gnarly. And coming

through it, it was the perfect thing

because I was like, those are the things

I know I can create now.

>> There is no way, and this is why I feel

it's important to talk about these

compounds. There is no way whatsoever

that a therapist was going to sit down

and go, "Hey,

what's ever on your mind today? Let's

talk about what didn't happen. No one's

ever done that for And if they had,

there's no way that I would have been in

the full emotional experience of the

lack

>> or necessarily had access to it

>> or had access to it. Right? So, I give

that as an example. It's certainly not

what everyone would experience, but I'd

never thought about the problem of what

hadn't happened as a as a viable option

to explore. It's so obvious now. But

then the outcome of this brutally hard

session was beautiful. No additional

drug, nothing for and it stayed with me.

This was over well over a year ago. And

I thought, "This is awesome. I can

create these things. I know exactly what

to aim for." And it started to make

steps in my life, you know, steering the

ship in those directions. And not

surprisingly, it's like, "Yeah, I can do

this. I can do these things. I need some

practice." And and so I think that the

medicines, as we think of them, are

immensely powerful, immensely

precarious. You need the support.

I've been told in these sessions, hey,

maybe we don't go there. You don't go

there. that feels like a repeat. You

know, you need someone to help guide

you. These are not to be used

recreationally in my opinion. At least

not for folks like me. You know, I'm

just not interested in that.

>> But the lessons I learned is the

following.

>> Neuroplasticity is the goal.

>> Directed toward something that often

times we can't identify

through standard therapy. Like you could

say, "Oh, I'm trying to resolve my

traumas." That's a sentence. If you

can't know exactly what the thing was

and or even if you can or the things

that happened, what what about the

things that didn't happen? It just never

would have occurred to me. So, it

revealed both the thing that needed work

and allowed me to do a lot of the work

in real time and spit me out the other

end, which is how it felt. You know, I

wasn't cratered coming out the other. I

was like, that was an ass kicking of a

whole other level. And like with a clear

mission in mind of what to do in my

daily life that has served me very, very

well. It also reminded me that we seem

to have this one compound type view and

I'm not suggesting that

polyfarmarmacology is the way but it

turned out in this case was the

appropriate tool for me

>> and it's also a reminder that combined

pharmarmacology with brain machine

interface and stimulation combining

ketamine therapy with TMS. I've not done

ketamine nor TMS, but

I think we are entering a really

exciting new time where we're going to

be able to amplify

the effects of machines and drugs. Let's

call them what they are. It's

pharmarmacology, but drugs that they can

synergize in ways that are more

directed.

>> But ultimately, the the directives in

life are what matter. Like, do I feel

better? What am I doing on a daily basis

that's serving me? Like if the inter

mids singulate cortex or the posterior

insula gets, you know, 10% thicker,

great. But if you're not making better

decisions, like frankly, who gives a

[ __ ] Who cares? So ultimately, everyday

outcomes, the clinical outcomes and

everyday outcomes are what really

matter. Brain imaging is important, too,

of course. So

>> the experience with these with these

compounds, I will also say, left me in a

place where I'm like, I'm feeling pretty

good right now. I I feel really good. In

fact, I don't feel quote unquote called

to it again right now. Maybe I will at

some point.

>> I have not, you know, for instance, I've

never done Iawaska. There seems to be

this resurgence of the oneshot theory in

Silicon Valley that there are these like

CEOs or company founders rather who will

take Iawaska and then like quit the

company or something. And I made the

argument to Mark Andre and like well

maybe they're happier. And he made the

argument quite astutely as pretty much

everything Mark says is he said yeah but

as an investor that's not what I'm

looking for. And I go, well, sure, but

from a life satisfaction point, maybe

yes. I think it depends on what your

incentive structure is.

>> And so I am very excited about

plasticity tools. Whether or not it's

talk therapy combined with a brain

stimulation device that's invasive or

non-invasive or a veagal stimulation

device, those are getting better and

better all the time. whether or not it's

an impathogen and psilocybin

high dose with therapeutic support or

it's daily micro doing for seven days

with an undetectable like subjective

effect where you're just like I feel

fine I feel normal but you're doing a

bunch of hard things and suddenly your

brain is shifting more quickly. I mean I

think this is where the field needs to

go.

>> Yeah.

>> Enough with it quote unquote opens

plasticity.

>> That's a general statement not about

psychedelics but includes psychedelics.

Let me chime in here. This is this is

good terrain. So I would say a couple of

things that might might be helpful for

folks or interesting just to bat around.

So the first I would say is that

when you induce plasticity, let's just

explore that with in the context of

psychedelics and I'm going to use some

pretty primitive

analogies here. But if you're heating up

the clay, that doesn't immediately

mean that in that window of plasticity

or after that, you're going to turn out

better than you were before. You have to

be very cautious about how you reshape

the clay once you induce that

plasticity. And I'd suggest people check

out Gul Dolan. She's at UC Berkeley.

She's looked at critical periods and the

reopening of critical periods after

psychedelics. She's focused a lot on

MDMA but also

is exploring IBA gain among other things

and that's part of the reason why

historically if you talk to facilitators

who have literally supervised thousands

of sessions

more common in like the neocamonic kind

of Northern California context for

simplicity than the indigenous but the 2

to 3 weeks following has always been

viewed as this golden window for

reformatting your behavior. behavior and

your patterns. And it turns out that

modern science, ghoul's research being

one good example of it, reinforces this.

So it's not just taking the medicine in

the form of a pill, a potion, whatever

it might be. It's actually that is a

catalyst that opens a period of time

during which the work needs to be done.

Right? So that's part number one. I

would say that your experience also with

the hippie flipping, so the the MDMA

plus psilocybin or in this case slocity

mushrooms, I would say blunting or

eliminating the let's just call it

energetic hangover MDMA. Super typical.

I don't generally well not that I'm

doing this at all obviously for legal

purposes but let's just say

hypothetically

that's part of the reason why some

people will format say a weekend where

you have

breath work let's just say as a leadin

then in pathogen and then the next day

something that is more and this term is

controversial but classical psychedelic

again for simplicity let's just call it

psilzy LSD whatever it might

also tends to reduce that potential for

like the energetic hangover, right? So

that's pretty common. People can check

out also transcend therapeutics. It just

got acquired or at least the majority

was purchased who have been

commercializing methylone which is a

very very interesting compound. It's

like the shorter acting softer cousin of

MDMA much less body load. Very very

interesting compound. they did which was

very smart and I'm not saying MAPSLOS

whatever the current name is wasn't

smart but one of the problems that MDMMA

ran into is that it was coupled with

psychotherapy and the FDA does not know

how to regulate psychotherapy that they

don't know how to standardize or think

of as standardized and so what

transcended is they just completely

separated the two and actually removed

the psychotherapy completely and said

how do people do with methylone period

that's it and they've done incredibly

well which is reflected in the

acquisition really interesting compound

methylone

>> methylone interesting I I wasn't aware

of it

>> yeah I mean I I think these are very

>> interesting compounds and I used to have

this view like oh psychedel like

>> you're increasing neurom modulators

>> SSRI will do that too differently you

know and clearly a different experience

actually I've not taken SSRIs

Trying to think. Have I ever taken an

SSRI?

>> Have you ever taken Trezadone? It's not

technically an SSRI.

>> No, I haven't. I think there's so much

important work to be done here. And I

will say huge hat tip to you. You've

been ushering this forward. It's amazing

we can even have this conversation,

things that have happened,

>> things have changed.

>> My conclusion after all of that and lots

of personal flight time with lots of

things is that to state the obvious,

it's not a panacea. It's for most people

not going to be one and done where the

potion pill plant medicine does all the

heavy lifting for you. The way I think

about it now is it's like very

complicated knee reconstructive surgery.

It's

>> like you're going to want to pick the

doctor very carefully. You're going to

want to know how to do your due

diligence.

>> You have the surgery and then guess

what? The next let's even could be like

both shoulders, both knees. Boy, do you

have a lot of rehab to do. Y

>> and that's the way that I myself think

about it. And also it's contraindicated

for a lot of people at least as of right

now. There are exclusionary criteria for

these clinical trials. And I don't think

all of them will hold water long term.

But if you have bipolar, if you have a

family history of schizophrenia or

borderline personality disorder, it is

generally not a good idea. And coming

back to the polyfarma, do not

underestimate the risk of cannabis when

taken with or in proximity to these

drugs. You can get yourself into a lot

of trouble. And then I would say to

deliver on the brain stimulation side

that one of the most interesting things

to me right now is the one day protocol.

It's been refined by Dr. Jonathan Downer

at University of Toronto and others but

using an agent in this case an

antibiotic to induce neuroplasticity

called descloerene.

So you take in this case it's just a

coincidence but I think the most common

dose that's been used is 125 milligrams

like oral like troy and you dissolve it

an hour before your stimulation. Again,

I'm pulling this from memory so people

can read up on the literature, but you

take that five-day protocol that had

been compressed by Nolan and team down

from 3 to 6 months. They had compressed

it down to 5 days, but people are still

having to take 5 days off of work

because you're getting stimulated 10

times a day, right? Every hour on the

hour. They're variable protocols, but

that's roughly it. Very few people can

take a week off of work and pay out of

pocket. Incredibly expensive. So this

one day is preloading with the descerion

and you take those five days and you

compress it into one day and I've had

experiences with this one-day protocol

and full disclosure I'm involved with

this company Ampa Health which is

co-founded by Jonathan Downer. So

there's that. But I experienced all this

before any of these conversations. And

from that, I've been able to get like a

90% reduction in my generalized anxiety

disorder and OCD for 3 to four months at

a time. Some people get much longer

durability.

>> That's impressive.

>> I've met people who have had 18 months

of durability with major depressive

disorder, one day. and the side effect

profile

and there are other hardware providers

and so on that you can look into but

having this accelerated TMS protocol

enhanced by the neuroplasticity right of

this descarer DCS for short it's been a

real focus is trying to look at neurom

modulation writ large as opposed to just

psychedelics right because if the only

tool you have is a hammer and it's not

my expression right a lot of things

start to look like nails and

psychedelics are not useful for

everything. They just are not. And if

you look at any historical use of these

compounds, having thousands and millions

of people taking psychedelics is a brand

new experiment. Right? If you look at

most indigenous cultures who consume

whether it's slobby mushrooms or iawaska

or something else, it is a very very

very very small percentage of the

population. Yeah. typically reserved for

who you might consider the ethnobbotnist

pharmacist medicine man or woman and

pre-Colombian contact for instance with

like in the case of Iawaska

two things number one the patients

seldom drank so to the patients in

quotation marks cuz two of the principal

uses of iaska were for warfare and

hunting so this idea of like we just put

LSD or whatever the psychedelic dour is

in the water and we have world peace. It

ain't a real thing, guys.

>> Could be the opposite.

>> Go to any psychedelic conference and

look at the obscene infighting for any

proof of that. You know, it's the worst.

It's so so bad.

What they do, coming back to your point,

right, and alongside the descerion and

many other compounds, is they induce

neuroplasticity, which affords you a

window

of opportunity within which you can do

some pretty cool stuff. Oh, I'm totally

on board. I mean, it's interesting

because as we're sort of moving through

exercise and psychedelics and which is

really a conversation about

neuroplasticity and mental health,

perhaps physical health as well.

>> It's very clear that like all the stuff

about exercise, increasing brain derived

neutropic value, it's

>> all tied together.

>> It's all tied together. And then you

think, well, why is my brain, you know,

sharper after I exercise? There's an

alertness thing. You're using your own

chemistry to wake you up. some BDNF, but

then people sort of assume you just have

to do the exercise part. You actually

have to go try and learn something to

get the plasticity. Doesn't matter. You

could quadruple the amount of

circulating BDNF in your brain.

Nothing's going to change. I know this

for a fact because for years I studied

neuroplasticity. You need precisely

timed neural firing pre- and post

synaptically. You can do this with

sensory input. We're talking about

reading, math, learning divibe code. Is

that what they call it now? Right. Which

Rick Rubin invented. No, I'm kidding. He

did. He's going to kill me for saying

that, but the memes would make you think

so. Whatever it is that you want to

rewire, you have to go do that hard

work. Just getting the chemicals

increase doesn't do it. You need

alertness. You need these chemicals

circulating. It helps to have an

emotional rise. If it's for, you know,

certain kinds of work and perhaps not

for others, more analytic work requiring

probably less of an emotional rise.

But the directed part is that that's the

next step. And I think about that a lot.

I mean, having sat down as you have with

so many guests now who are experts in

psychiatry and psychology and self-help,

for lack of a better way to put it,

it's reassuring to me that as with

exercise, as with nutrition, as with

psychedelics, some kind of themes are

starting to fall out. We're starting to

almost get to principles. There's this

wonderful book in the field of

neuroscience called Principles of

Neuroscience. Almost everyone gets it.

It's a big old

>> I think I had that textbook.

used to be Kendell Jesseline Schwarz and

then one of those folks got cancelled

and then passed away and so it's got a

different author line there but that was

the original one Kendelle Jesseline

Schwarz and the idea is principles of

neuroscience yes it's filled with facts

about receptors and neurotransmitters

and tons of beautiful details of all

these discoveries but what you learn as

a graduate student and a postto and then

when you eventually if you become a

professor you want to teach the students

is what are the principles of how a

nervous system builds itself attractants

and repellents. What are the principles

by which neural circuits change? Oh, you

need coordinated firing. You know, you

can actually unwire things if they're

mismatched firing. Like, how do you

build a memory and then move it

someplace else so you don't have to fill

the memory making area to its capacity?

You know, these are the principles are

what eventually emerge and that's very

useful in the fields, if you will, of

health and wellness, which umbrellas all

the things we've been talking about and

a lot more. We're finally getting to

that. This is the reason why I threw out

like exhale emphasized breathing slows

you down, calms you down and inhale

emphasized breathing wakes you up.

Resistance training to or near or past

failure that kind of scales the number

of sets. We are finally at a place where

because of social media, thank goodness,

because of podcasts, again, huge hat tip

to you. Yours was the first podcast I

ever listened to, still listen to. It

was, you know, we are finally at this

place where people are starting to hear

like, "Yeah, I get it. The sunlight

thing." You go, "You get it? Okay,

cool." Ironically, the things that

people have heard many, many times are

often things they need to do every day

and be reminded of many, many times. But

it's not about getting morning sunlight

for x number of minutes, etc. It's about

understanding what is it in this morning

sunlight thing. I'll tell you right now

the big eye openener for me, no pun

intended, this last year was I did an

episode on cortisol, the quote unquote

stress hormone. No, cortisol is involved

with stress. Yes, that's true. But

cortisol mobilizes glucose from the

liver and elsewhere into the body. It's

an energy deploying hormone. When you

wake up in the morning, it's because of

a rise in cortisol. Cortisol awakening

response. Adenosine is very low.

Melatonin is dropping. Cortisol goes up.

you wake up, if your alarm goes off,

spikes even more. Viewing bright light,

ideally from sunlight first thing in the

morning, increases that morning cortisol

spike by about 50%. Okay? And on and on

and I could say, and also cold water and

caffeine and exercise. Exercise, by the

way, will triple or quadruple your

baseline cortisol levels at any time of

the 24-hour cycle. So, you go, okay,

that's a bunch more facts. Ah, but the

principle is if your morning cortisol is

high and you can make it higher doing

any number of the things I just

described.

It ensures that your evening and

nighttime cortisol is low and that's

what sets you up for an increase in

melatonin. It's what helps ensure a

great night's sleep. And so you go,

okay, so the real principle here is you

want to bookend the day with high

cortisol in the morning, whenever your

morning happens to be. It doesn't matter

if it's 6:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. Bright

light, caffeine, hydration, exercise,

a little stress, too probably will help.

And you want the end of your day to be

low cortisol, high melatonin,

high adenosine. You know, the more

movement you get during the day, the

better off you are. And all of a sudden,

it doesn't really matter if you have

access or the time to do all of the

things I just described. It's not about

morning sunlight, per se. Just turns out

that morning sunlight in your eyes is

the best way to ramp up that morning

peak. And that ramped up morning peak is

the best way to make sure that it's low

at night. And if you experience any

stress in the evening at night, it's a

quick blip in cortisol and that's

reduced. Otherwise, it's a blip on top

of a high baseline.

>> You look at cancer treatment outcomes.

You look at anxiety. By the way, what I

just described is true for kids,

pregnant women, permenopausal,

menopausal, and men. You want high

morning, low evening, and nighttime

cortisol. Aim for that that principle.

Whatever you have available to do that.

If you're on a plane, it looks

different. If you're in California, it

looks different than if you're in

Scandinavia, different times of year.

Whatever you do to try and ensure that

bookending, high and low cortisol,

respectively, morning and night, you

won. You won the day and the night. And

so, it doesn't really matter what the

individual protocols are.

>> Mhm. And this to me is like the most

important and exciting thing about where

the quote unquote field of health and

wellness and public discourse about

health has taken us, which is we finally

have some principles to work with. And

then if people go, well, I don't like

the cold shower. Okay, fine. But like, I

don't I don't like resistance training.

I want to do PL. Okay, fine.

>> Choose a different tool.

>> Choose a different tool. But the

principles are what count. And to me,

that's super exciting. That's not

boring. All right, Andrew, I want to ask

you about peptides.

All the rage. You look at Google Trends.

Everybody and their brother has a

peptide startup, but there seems to

maybe be something there. I don't know

if there's a there there. For people who

have heard the word, don't know exactly

what folks are talking about. I get

texted every week multiple times from

people asking about various peptides.

And I'd say half the time, depending on

what they're trying to do, I'm like,

can't you just be a grown-up and inject

testosterone or HGH [laughter]

instead? If you're trying to get there

directly, but I would be very interested

to hear, I know there's a broad spectrum

of stuff that people are experimenting

with,

>> what are these things and and what's

your current thinking?

>> I also don't completely disagree with

you about like just be a grown-up and

take cipionate and HGH. If you want to

maintain fertility, take some HCG as

well.

>> Yeah.

>> And I'm being facitious, of course. I I

think there are risks to all of those,

but it is the appropriate opening joke

slreity because if you're expecting

cipionate HGH type results from

peptides, you ain't going to get them.

At least not with respect to like

anabolic growth, feelings of well-being.

Peptides are short chains of amino

acids. Insulin's a peptide, etc. I

cannot take credit for what I'm about to

say next, but it's a very, very

important principle. I think this is

kind of the theme today I suppose. Abu

Bakri who's an MD came on the podcast

talked about peptides and he said look

for many many hundreds if not thousands

of years but certainly hundreds of years

in the context of pharma

people have been searching for medicines

in plants isolating medicines from

plants. Pharma companies still do this.

Now people are starting to look for

medicines within the body and peptides

are a great example of that. GLP for

instance, the drugs that increase GLP do

so to thousandfold levels over the

levels of circulating GLP that you would

have and they result in as we all know

robust weight loss. So that's one

category. I think we need to think about

categories of peptides but understand

that peptides are all over they're made

in your brain and body. Some of them may

have benefits when made synthetically

and delivered at very very high doses

such as with these GLP agonists ompic

mjaro rea tide is one that we should

talk about made by lily it's coming out

soon

>> it impacts the GLP system but also the

gip and the glucagon system

>> careful with that one kiddos

>> a lot of people are going to be micro

doing it

>> a lot of people are finding that micro

doses can have similar effects and

that's an important kind of cost risk

analysis okay So stepping back, peptides

are made in your body. They at high

concentrations made synthetically they

may provide

benefits that are make them medicines.

So we can think of the weight loss

peptides.

The GLPs being the most prominent

example. The GLP drugs that increased

levels of GLP 100fold were used to treat

diabetes for a while still are, but they

didn't induce much weight loss. the ones

that raise GLOP levels thousandfold or

more, those lead to robust weight loss,

including muscle loss. And so that's

part of the controversy. Also, there's

discussion about maybe increasing some

apathy. They reduce craving for alcohol

and perhaps cravings more generally at

the recommended dosages. In some people,

they can create nausea, which is why

some people are taking less of them and

still getting the weight loss benefits,

but less nausea. There's a lot of stuff

going on there.

to stay on the GLPs and weight loss

peptides. Specifically, Lily developed

reatride which hits the GLP GIP and

glucagon system leads to the most robust

weight loss seems to spare some muscle.

Perhaps people should always resistance

train anyway to offset that. But

it's the most effective of those weight

loss, let's just call it GLPS, even

though it hits these other systems. The

gray market is the quote unquote for

research purposes only stuff that you

can buy online. It's perfectly legal to

sell

for research purposes only, not for

animal or human use. And I joked on X a

while ago like, wow, all these home

labs, everyone's buying this. Of course,

people are injecting them. The concern

is about contamination with things like

lipid polysaccharide or you're not

getting what you think you're getting.

So many people are already taking

redatruide even though it hasn't been

formally released because it's pretty

easy to synthesize. And so it's being

sold on the gray market, people are

taking it. There's a second category and

then I'll return to the kind of gray

market issue. The second category would

be things to increase growth hormone,

so-called growth hormone secrets, things

like serarellin, epomeurlin,

tesamearellin.

These are all varants on the theme of

get the brain neurons that project down

to the pituitary to stimulate release of

growth hormone at night. Typically, you

don't eat a couple hours before sleep is

the idea. Probably good for sleep

anyway. It is good for sleep anyway.

Then you inject this stuff. Typically,

it leads to maybe a three to eightfold

increase in growth hormone IGF-1.

Some stimulate appetite quite a bit like

MK677. Some don't. I've tried Smurellin

very briefly. Dramatically increased my

slowwave deep sleep. Nuked my REM sleep.

This is a common theme. Spiked my

prostate specific antigen. I've never

had any problems with PSA. I came off

it. PSA went back to normal. No one's

been able to give me a mechanistic

explanation for that. I'm not about to

run the experiment again. I didn't find

that I got much fat loss from it, but I

didn't use it very long. I didn't find I

got stronger, you know, just didn't seem

worth it to me given the PSA thing. A

lot of people take these thing and

they're going to get these really

dramatic increases in growth hormone.

They sound dramatic three to eightfold,

but whether or not they're meaningful in

terms of fat loss, it doesn't really

seem they're that robust, especially

given that you have all the GLPS now. So

the growth hormone secrets also include

things like CJC and there are some

variants on these which can lead to some

insulin resistance but maybe spikes GH a

bit more. I don't know. None of those to

me really seem worth it personally, just

given the effects aren't that great. You

know, if someone can afford it and they

can get a script for it, probably better

to just take pharmagra smatotrope or

omnitrope growth hormone. And you know,

the bodybuilders would take like eight

IUs a day or something crazy like that.

But the in the trials that have been

done with metformin and GH typically

it's people are taking one to two IUs

five nights per week. that will

dramatically increase deep sleep and

probably sleep overall and the effects

on fat loss and just tissue repair

healings and feelings of well-being and

just cognitive function. Anecdotally,

people and subjectively people say like,

"Wow, I just feel so great." This is the

getting up in the morning and be like,

"Wow, my joints feel good." And just

being ready to like go go. It's not

anabolic as much as something like

testosterone, etc. But I'm not telling

people to run out and do GH, but if you

could get a good script, a script for

real GH and take a low dose versus

taking a bunch of like unknown secreted

dog peptides. That seems like a obvious

one for me. Then there's a category of

things like

BPC57, body protection compound 157,

which is a amino acid chain that is in

gastric juice, but it's this isolated

amino acid chain that seems to be the

one that's most popular. And at the same

time, it's the one for which most people

probably are taking it for all the wrong

reasons. I've tried it. I definitely

feel like after a pain or strain, the

recovery is faster, but I can't do the

control experiment because it goes

systemic. So, it's not like you could,

let's say you hurt both biceps. You

could, you can't inject into one bicep

and not the other and assume that it's

just acting locally. It's going to go

systemically. There are capsule forms of

BPC that people claim are just as good.

I don't know. Do you have to inject

locally close to the injury? It seems

that might be helpful. The animal data

on BPC are really impressive. Cartilage

regrowth, fibiberblast migration,

angioenesis, nerve regrowth. It's a

literature I've spent a lot of time

with. There's not a single published

human trial. Where I think the most

interesting use of it perhaps is is I

know someone recently, she wrote to me

and she said that her dog had a spinal

injury and she said, "Does BPC work in

animals?" I go, "Actually, pretty much

all the data are in animals." So if my

dog, god forbid, had an injury, I'd be

willing to give him or her BPC. You have

to work out the appropriate dosage.

>> How would you source that

hypothetically?

>> So you can get it from compoundingies

now. So you need a doctor to write that

script. Depending on your risk

tolerance, you could go to the gray

market for research purposes only. I

wouldn't do that. Peptide Sciences

shuttered their doors, windows,

whatever. They closed a few months back.

They they sense the heat coming on and

they're like, "We're out." They took

their money and they're out. Smart move,

Peptide Sciences. So nowadays, you can

find doctors that will prescribe it.

There's also pentadcaeptide, which is

just a different form of BPC seems to

have same function. It's easier to find.

and getting it from a compounding

pharmacy. Of course, compoundingies vary

in stringency, but is going to be

cleaner than the gray market sourcing of

course, but I have no relationship to

thesearmacies, but for instance, Tailor

Made, Upstate, Revive Pharmacy. These

are kind of the better known and trusted

compoundingies. Compoundingies were

allowed to compound drugs that are still

under patent during shortages and can

compound generic drugs. They'll also

truly compound peptides. You could get

BPC with another one. The TB500, the

so-called Wolverine stack. I don't know.

I've never tried TB500. I keep some BPC

157 in the fridge. If I have a a strain,

I'll

>> Can I hop in for a second? Like the

challenge with so much this stuff is you

can't do the control, right?

>> Cuz I took the Wolverine stack after I

had elbow surgery and I'm like,

>> did it help? I have no idea, frankly. I

have no idea,

>> you know. No, I will say this. I've used

it a few times, very short runs of it.

I'm not interested in using it as a

general recovery tool or every day or I

don't have any gut issues like so people

have used high doses of BPC to resolve

gut issues. That was the original use.

You know in this clinical trial they did

BBC enemas at very high dosages.

>> Sounds like an Austin party [laughter]

>> you know and supposedly I learned this

from Abu Pavlov actually had a side gig.

He was a health influencer. He would

give people gastric juices to try and

resolve ulcers and things like that. And

we know gastric juices contain a number

of beneficial peptides,

>> but I don't recommend

>> How did they down those? How did they

get them in there?

>> How' they down them? And how' they get

them?

>> A glass of gastric juices.

>> I mean, maybe he had a cabinet of people

with the, you know, they're tapping

them. Yeah. So rough. So, you know,

people say, "Should I take BPC?" No, you

shouldn't unless you have an injury or

maybe in that case, you get clean

compounded pharmacy BPC and you inject

it locally or you take it systemically.

You try it, see if it helps. But why

would you take it ongoing? That just

doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't

make any sense to me, frankly. And

again, you go back to your sort of half

joke at the beginning, you really want

to recover quickly from exercise, take

an IU or two IUs of GH every night

before sleep and you will recover

magnificently well. I mean, in the for

the enhanced games, the swimmer, the

massive lats guy, he recently put his

>> stack out and I think it was 200

milligrams of of cipionate per week. So

that's one cc of standard cypate. That's

a lot. I have to say most people I know

and we can talk about this

>> and I've talked about my cipionate use

and

>> from the beginning and the experiment of

like much much slower. I believe in

micro doing that if at all. He's taking

200 plus I think he's doing two IUs of

growth hormone per night or five nights

per week and he's taking EPO. They can

only take FDA approved drugs. So that's

kind of so it's it's like in

[clears throat]

>> But were they testing at all to verify

if they're FDA approved versus

>> I don't know