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133: Dr Stu Phillips Part 2: Power, Protein, And The Science We Get Wrong
1.4k Plays14 days ago
In this episode, Sarah Court and Laurel Beversdorf continue their conversation with Dr. Stu Phillips, one of the world's leading protein researchers. They dig into the latest ACSM Position Stand on Resistance Training, unpacking what it actually says about strength, hypertrophy, power, progressive overload, and why many of the debates happening online are driven more by certainty than by evidence.
They also explore why protein has "jumped the shark," how marketing has outpaced the science, whether menopausal women really need dramatically more protein, and why consistency—not optimization—is still the most powerful exercise strategy. Throughout the conversation, Stu explains why scientific nuance often gets lost on social media and why changing your mind when new evidence emerges is a strength, not a weakness.
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RESOURCES
- ACSM Position Stand on Resistance Training
- ACSM Health & Fitness Journal special issue on power training
- Stu Phillips — Protein Jumped the Shark (2025 article)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Mission
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Laurel Biebersdorf, strength and conditioning coach. And I'm Dr. Sarah Court, physical therapist. With over 30 years of combined experience in fitness, movement, and physical therapy, we believe in strong opinions loosely held. Which means we're not here to hype outdated movement concepts. or to gatekeep or fearmonger strength training for women. For too long, women have been sidelined in strength training. Oh, you mean handed pink dumbbells and told to sculpt?
00:00:25
Speaker
Whatever that means, we're here to change that with tools, evidence, and ideas that center women's needs and voices. Let's dive in.
Episode Introduction with Dr. Stu Phillips
00:00:49
Speaker
Welcome to the Movement Logic Podcast. My name is Sarah Court, and this is our part two today of the interview that Laurel and I did with Dr. Stu Phillips. We had an incredible conversation with him.
00:01:02
Speaker
If you have not yet, you should definitely go back and listen to the episode right before this, which was part one of our conversation. We had some tech difficulties when we were recording, so we ended up meeting with him twice and then cut the episodes together so that we talk about the same topics together.
00:01:21
Speaker
And so in today's episode, we talked to Dr. Philips about the recent ACSM position stand that came out, which he was one of the authors on.
00:01:32
Speaker
And we also talked to him about protein, that hot nutrition topic of the moment, and whether or not we've all gone a little... too far perhaps in our protein injecting into literally everything it seems like.
00:01:48
Speaker
Before we get into that, please, if you are interested in lifting weights and getting stronger, you can get our free barbell mini guide. The link to get it is in the show notes.
00:01:59
Speaker
You get on our mailing list and you get the barbell mini guide. i think it's a pretty good deal. It will take you through all kinds of different lifting techniques, lifting terminology, and the basics of your squat, your deadlift and your bench press. There's sort three basic lifting movements.
00:02:15
Speaker
You can do the whole thing with just dumbbells if that's what you have. We just like barbells. We think they're easier, frankly, even though other people don't. They look intimidating, but in actual fact, they're not that hard to use. So that's why we use them. But if you don't have them, no problem. You're going use dumbbells. So feel free to go check that out
Importance of Function in Training
00:02:33
Speaker
in the show notes. And please enjoy part two of our interview.
00:02:43
Speaker
We're gonna talk about the ACSM position stand. So for someone whose primary goal is function and independence as they age, how should they think about the difference between training for muscle size versus training for strength versus training for power? Should they be more or less interested in one of those or should they be equally interested in all of those? What do you think?
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that they all matter to some degree. I think that I would go for function over anything. That's ultimately the functional part of things is it's underpinned by muscle, but we know that we can get changes in muscular function without necessarily getting changes in muscular mass. And as much as people want to say, you know, muscle is the organ of longevity, and I think it's having a moment right now. And I probably, for a large part, agree with that assessment. I would say that actually strength is the currency of what your muscle can do. And then power is the other output would be more important, particularly from a successful aging standpoint. Strength is definitely a coordination issue to do with if you want to lift heavy things,
00:03:59
Speaker
than practice lifting heavy things. And so we get better at what we practice doing. At the same time, power is the manifestation of strength, but done rapidly. So velocity as the component is really key. And the coaching command for developing power is during the concentric phase. So when you're pushing the barbell or you're pulling it, or you're you know, coming up out of a squat is to with intent move as fast as you're safely able.
00:04:34
Speaker
And the intent matters because even if you don't actually functionally move with intent, some really old work actually done by a former professor here at McMaster named Digby Sale,
00:04:47
Speaker
showed that it was the intention to move fast that was important and ingraining your your mind thinking, okay, I'm going to try and snap these motor recruitment motor units and recruit the muscle fibers and move fast. As you as you get better at doing it, you do move faster.
Training Speed and Velocity
00:05:03
Speaker
right Is there ever a reason why you should then not cue someone to move the load as fast as possible? Well, so the only thing is, is the, is the velocity component of things puts, I think for older people can put a bit of a strain on connective tissue, right? So there is a volume of work that I would say that power training, i would say once a week and then let the system recover and heal and essentially get better for the next time. So i don't have an issue with queuing move fast. I do think that there's times where it's probably not the best idea to keep doing that. Is age the only factor you're considering there? Are you considering training history as well? Yeah, training history is important. But at my age and my training history, I do that once a week. I know I couldn't do any more. So i'm I'm thinking like if you're lifting and weights, okay, and your intention is to lift those weights to build muscle and strength, but you're just layering in the queue to also try to lift the weight as fast as possible, which I find like if I'm doing a heavy deadlift,
00:06:04
Speaker
if I don't try to lift the weight as fast as possible, I'm probably not going to get it off the ground kind of thing. yeah So why wouldn't you just always be teaching people to try to do that? Yeah, I mean, there's certainly a merit to sort of saying, try to do it as fast as possible. I think that the important point is is that the attempt to do it is important, but the execution of it at some point is also important. So you know if you've got a really heavy bar that you're lifting up off the floor in terms of a deadlift, you can try to lift it.
00:06:34
Speaker
you know, fast, but if it's really heavy, you're not going to be able to, but at a certain point, what you can do is unload the bar and you can actually move it fast. So, you know, the the functional lift with the older people is arms across the chest and out of the chair and that's power.
00:06:52
Speaker
like that's But the only load that you have to worry about in that lift is your own body. yeah but yeah Once you get good at that, then you put a bar on your back, but it could be a broomstick to start out with, or it could be just 45-pound bar. Yeah, I would see that cue would probably be more appropriate for more experienced lifters, right? Because as soon as you tell a beginner, lift as fast as possible, it's like everything goes out the window in terms of form and technique, right? You lose form, right? You form. So there's a degree of essentially learning the move, getting that ingrained.
00:07:28
Speaker
building some strength first so that you foundationally can begin to do some of those faster lifts because the connective tissue adaptation takes a little bit of time, right? And when you move fast, it's that muscle tendon bone unit that youre you're placing under some degree of stress. So you need to base layer in the strength work and maybe build a little bit of muscle and then yeah move towards the power. And I still sort of think one day a week of power work is,
00:07:58
Speaker
Well, at first it's one day a week more than most people are doing. Yeah.
Rethinking Progressive Overload
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah. I want to talk as well about in the paper, because there were quite a few like really interesting findings. And one of them was about progressive overload and, you know, progressive overload was sort of like the Holy grail in weight training, right? It's like always be progressively overloading. Yeah. And you describe in the paper that it is foundational, but you also say that progression isn't actually necessary for beneficial outcomes. And we thought that that was a really nuanced distinction.
00:08:33
Speaker
Dr. Phillips or Stu, rather, that would be a great social post for you, by the way. You'd really ride with others with that. Can you unpack that? and yeah but can Can you unpack that for us? about yeah there unit The fair comment on that is is that we wrote, it took a lot of doing, right, to pull together that list of authors and to get consensus on wording and everything, because everybody wants to have their way in wordsmithing. You know, at certain a certain point, the instruction that goes out to the author list when you're working with a common document is,
00:09:03
Speaker
If we could ease off on the wordsmithing and just focus on the big picture. And so immediately everybody's like, well, we need to emphasize progressive overload. And I'm like, okay, yeah, totally got it. yes So the instruction goes in, everything goes through its progressive overload.
00:09:18
Speaker
During the review process, we had six reviewers, which is unusual for a paper, but I don't think for a position stand of maybe that level of importance, you And two of them pointed out, they said, cite the evidence that shows that progressive overload is necessary. yeah that word again And we were like, oh, that shouldn't be too hard to find. And you're like, hmm.
00:09:42
Speaker
Actually, that's a lot harder than you think. To show that to me, I don't disagree that it's done, but I think that it's really important to say, show me the data. And there are a few studies, but I think that the more active or the correct way to describe it is progressive over stimulus.
00:10:02
Speaker
And it's not necessarily always load. So it could be that you were doing one set and then you switch to two sets. And that's a further challenge to the system.
00:10:12
Speaker
And that promotes an adaptive response. Or if you were lifting one day a week, you move to two. and And that promotes an adaptation in the system. Or if you increase if you increase range of motion.
00:10:25
Speaker
yeah Exactly. so So you can think of a lot of things that we could change to increase effort, challenge, call it whatever you want from biology. If resistance exercise is a drug and we keep taking one dose one day a week, all of a sudden the effects become the adaptation response gets sort of, and and that's a classic stimulus response type biology. So now we take more of the drug, i.e. we take a bigger dose. And so we do more on that one day or
00:11:00
Speaker
I can't really get the the analogy for load, but ah yeah, a greater amount or something like that. But, or we do it on more days a week. So we don't dose one day a week. We dose two days a week, three days a week, that sort of thing. So it's an imperfect analogy, but it sort of gets the point across that load is the most commonly manipulated thing.
00:11:22
Speaker
thing to change because you as you get stronger, the load feels lighter. ah So, and as the overload and progression, that's what everybody thinks needs to be progressed. I would think that actually tweak quite a few things and still get progress.
Consistency vs. Optimization in Exercise
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, i like that change to overstimulus. I think that that just clears up the confusion around like always needing to have it be a heavier weight forever and ever. Surprising amount of pushback against that. yeah As you might imagine. yeah I think the the part that for GenPop, because I can see how in the like professional training world, they would have a lot of pushback against it. But I think for GenPop to understand, because one of the things that we've sort of come up against
00:12:04
Speaker
not come up against, but have seen people ask us in our barbell training program, they're like, okay, well, does this mean I just, in 10 years, I'm to be lifting 700 pounds because I have to just keep putting more and more weight on. And and understanding that the whatever load, how that has translated to whatever level of strength you have right now, if you just keep doing that, you're not going to go backwards in your strength. You're just not going to go forwards in your strength.
00:12:31
Speaker
Or the reason the reason you'd go backwards would be entirely age-related or life occurrence-related, and it won't be because of disuse or it won't be because of detraining or it won't be because of underloading, right? Yeah. Well, look at, you know, at my age, like I don't lift like I did when I was in my twenties. So and if I tried even there's, I, you know, yeah it would hurt.
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah. Aging is real. So, so the reality is, is that my event horizon now is not trying to lift what I did in my twenties. It's like, I know I'm on this part of the curve. And so it's so to have a slope like this, as opposed to a slope like this, right? So, yeah. You know, the challenge is relative to what you can do, but it's also relative to what it is that you want to get out of what it is that you're doing. And but the reality is that the, and I know this is a crummy thing to say, but with strength training and a lot of things in physiology and even lifestyle medicine,
00:13:31
Speaker
where you don't want to be is in the lowest quartile, quintile, tertile, whatever, the lowest 20 to 30%. And you can move from that lowest part to the next one with not much effort or work at all.
00:13:46
Speaker
Yeah. I see that a ton with my older patients that I work with, especially with the women who are from a lifetime of maybe not doing any weight training because socially that wasn't acceptable. Like these are the women that are now in their seventies and eighties. And i mean, the variety I see in terms of their just general health and comorbidities based exclusively on how much exercise they're getting is is wild to me. And and I hate to be like, who was it in the Greek myth? Cassandra, who's like constantly being like, look out, things get keep an eye out, the war is coming. Like, I hate to be that person. But at the same time, I kind of feel like I need to be that person. Like, look out folks, because it's either going to look like this or it's going to look like this. And it's entirely up to you. For
Barriers to Consistent Exercise
00:14:33
Speaker
the most part, obviously there are specific individual considerations, but like for the most part, I don't think people understand
00:14:41
Speaker
how important exercise is. In my opinion, the biggest issue with people not exercising is not because they don't know that exercise is good for you.
00:14:51
Speaker
Right. I feel like at this point, most people have an understanding, whether it's clear or muddy, that exercise is good for you and they're supposed to be doing it. Right. So it seems that to me doesn't seem to be the issue around why people don't exercise. It seems to be, and this paper highlighted as well, that it's got a lot more to do with compliance and sticking with it.
00:15:16
Speaker
And I wonder if there's a different kind of messaging that exercise professionals need to focus on to try to address this because the messaging as it is currently does not seem to be moving the needle, right? Telling people like, oh, here's all these benefits to exercise and just do this and do that. you're going to, you're going feel so much better.
00:15:35
Speaker
Does not, that message doesn't seem to be changing anything. Do you have thoughts on this as far as like how we know how we should be talking about exercise? I think you're spot on. I think you're spot on. i think that, you know, the number one reported barrier people say will be time.
00:15:50
Speaker
But the truth is my interpretation of that is that you don't value the activity enough to make time to do it. And maybe in all of the physiologists, you know, saying 150 minutes a week and two weeks, you know, people are just like, whatever, like I don't have that time. I'm not overly motivated to do this. So the pragmatic me says, first, you have to find something that you enjoy doing. And then there's a little bit of sort of the, we don't need to optimize every outcome, which is the mantra of social media. Yeah.
00:16:25
Speaker
is soul destroying, I'm sure for the average mortal out there. and It's exhausting. Yeah, it is. It's exhausting. It's confusing. And basically in the end, people just, you know, flip the middle finger and say, forget it. Like there's, I'm not doing that. So, you know, find something you enjoy, I think is absolutely paramount. And let's not get too dismissive over the,
00:16:50
Speaker
lifting this weight or this way to once you've dialed in the consistency piece to, to your point, like, absolutely. Like if you, if you're not consistent with something, anything, and in terms of lifestyle and, you know, habits, it doesn't matter. Like a one-off kale greens meal isn't going to change you. If every other meal is a fast food, right? So it's the same with exercise. So consistency of habit is like, that's the hack.
00:17:18
Speaker
yeah There are no other shortcuts. Like there's just, yeah, I agree is is the short answer. I wish I had the magic to be able to say, this is what you should do. There's lots of obviously caveats to any answer in that area, but the messaging is, you know, to your point, keep saying 150 and twice a week and nothing changes. Yeah. It's the definition of insanity to just repeating it.
00:17:46
Speaker
So we need to change a little bit around how we frame that. And I think it's more aiming at find something you enjoy, do it consistently. And if you are like, bravo.
00:18:00
Speaker
And I think it does also come down to values and the fact that people have exercise or being physically active pretty low down on their list of priorities. And I feel like there is going to be a number of different angles in which we'd have to work to get people to change their mind on that. Because it's not just the science that's going to do it. It's so many sociological factors. There's also the social determinants of health that come into play with that. yeah I mean, there' there's so many...
00:18:30
Speaker
large forces that are at play with regards to influencing people in how they think about what's important, but also so many forces at play that mean completely different amounts of time and money are available to different people depending on what's going on, where they live, their socioeconomic status. So it's actually extremely complex. I mean, the advice is simple, right?
00:19:00
Speaker
But how and how well people can take that advice is extremely complex. The advice is be consistent, right? It seems to always come down to this truth that it's really the consistency that matters. So therefore, it's the adherence that matters. But like at the end of the day, people have all these decisions they're making with their time and money. And for some reason, and for many reasons, and for very large, powerful reasons, people aren't choosing exercise, right? Yeah, yeah. Right.
00:19:26
Speaker
Right. And I don't know what what the answer is. I mean, a lot of people will point out is that we have so many good medicines for this, this, this, and this. Yeah. And I'm i'm like, that's true. But is the idea that you live longer, but you live...
00:19:41
Speaker
the last 20 plus years of your life in poor health, or you'd rather live it in good health. And and that's where the exercise picture pays dividends. It's almost embarrassing to talk about how good it is for you, but yeah people prioritizing that and the doing of it, spot on. Yeah. Means opportunity, physical environment, income, like all ah so many things beyond just, you know, just get out there and do it. Yeah.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah. So. And you can't take a pill to make your muscles stronger, right? No. You can't take a pill to improve your aerobic endurance, right? You know you actually have to engage in exercise. So that's going to require that you set aside time and then actually do it. that That's the hack right there. Yeah. yeah Yeah. Maybe that's how we have to message. We start talking about exercise as a life hack.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah. Because you know what I mean? Like people love hacks. So like, here's a hack. Go take a walk. Yeah.
00:20:37
Speaker
But it's, you know, what do what do you mean it's a hack? Like you gotta to do something. And I'm like, yeah, there you go. Yeah,
Benefits of Power Training for Older Adults
00:20:43
Speaker
exactly. The ACSM paper was a somewhat strong endorsement for power training, training the capacity of power that is not power lifting. Right. And while we see a few accounts in the algorithm on Instagram that, that we're looking at that encourage velocity specific or higher velocity training for older adults, power training. We don't see it as being as mainstream of an exercise prescription or a type of exercise like aimed at at older people. So we were wondering, do you feel that the ACSM was an endorsement for power training? And if so, why? And if not, why? And then why do you think that power or working on power gets less attention in the mainstream, especially for older folks?
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah. So a few things to unpack there. I mean, so the ACSM position stand yields to the evidence, right? I mean, it's not like we endorsed as much as so I would say, that's what the evidence showed. And we just explained that's what the evidence is.
00:21:43
Speaker
I think the power signal comes out pretty clearly. And I think the gap to be filled is whether the in-lab studies, i.e. train for power, you get better at Doing power, which is the strong signal that you see translates over into the functional outcomes, which we do see in certain circumstances. And then the sort of real world application, which a lot of people will argue things that become issues for older people, a fall, as an example, you trip, and then that quick motion you have to make to correct that trip.
00:22:22
Speaker
That's a power maneuver. yeah Ultimately, standing from a chair is power. And everybody, oh, they go, oh, that's strength. But I'm like, but it's strength done in a very short period of time. It's not like you have the chance. not like bending a bar where you go, okay, I can take as much time as I want. If you want to get out of a chair, you've got to generate power.
00:22:43
Speaker
force and do it within half a second or or or you engage. but Your triceps become transfer muscles. and And we know this from folks with spinal cord injury, MS, et cetera. Their legs might be weak, but if they've got a pretty good upper body, these are what they use to get. And so, but remove that and then it becomes an issue. So I think that power at later stages of life definitely becomes a probably a more so or i don't know if it's more, the signal is definitely clear. And so it's not that strength doesn't matter, but strength applied quickly
00:23:25
Speaker
yeah And to distinguish it from power training, and this is the pushback i get from a lot of coaches. They're like, oh there's no way I would have an older person do a power lift. And I'm like, okay, well, so let's be clear power power lift.
00:23:42
Speaker
Right. even though the word powerlifting. It's very confusing. It's yeah sometimes slow. So unfortunate. Right. Really heavy. yeah yeah You see people pick a bar, off like do a deadlift, and they go, this is powerlifting. I'm like, absolutely. But it's not actually lifting with power because it's done very slowly. Yeah. But very high forces. And I mean, and that's the, not to get too technical, but at the lowest weight, which would be sort of your body weight, that's when you can move the fastest. At the heaviest weight, that's actually when you have to move slowly. yeah That's power.
00:24:20
Speaker
as a product of force times velocity is actually optimized at this sort of range where the load is not high so you can move it fast and in in doing so you develop power so that's the type of exercise that we're talking about so the load is necessarily actually quite low Is an endorsement, the the signal comes out, the evidence is relatively clear and relatively clean. What it means in terms of real world, we don't have a lot of trials. We don't have a lot of power training trials and showing outcomes like reduced falls and these sorts of things. We have a few, but they're pretty clean. And so I have to be honest here is that
00:25:05
Speaker
the way that we design in our facility and in our studies, we don't actually focus on power, but I'm beginning to become more convinced that it's probably important.
00:25:17
Speaker
And so I think that it probably deserves a little bit more attention. The fundamental basis before you do anything to do with velocity, however, you have to develop strength and have to develop stability and you have to develop. So the core part of building up to power training is not to tomorrow start throwing stuff around really, really fast, but it's actually to do the strength work first, now to get a good base, to be stable, to then move into power training. And yeah let's face it, power training, when you move fast,
00:25:53
Speaker
It puts some stress on joints. It puts some stress on ligaments and tendons. So you can't do it all the time. You can't. Every session is a power session. And I would say sort of once a week for older folks. But yeah, we we dedicated a whole issue in the ACSM Health and Fitness Journal to power.
00:26:13
Speaker
And I think it would be fair to say that if you read those and I can send you the links and everything, they're all open access. people would get a pretty good kind of, I'll call it indoctrination, but yeah, like a good backgrounder in developing power and how to do it practically. It's not an Olympic lifting. It's not yeah hour lifting. It's moving generally lighter loads with the intent to move them fast.
00:26:43
Speaker
Cool. Do you think part of the problem with or why trainers might be resistant or gen pop might be resistant is that we don't understand that something like a sit to stand getting out of a chair involves power. We just think it's like box jumps and Olympic lifting and like first for somebody else to work on, right? For young athletic people to work on, but yeah not understanding that there's, as with all exercises, ways to regress it and make it ah viable I just saw a post of a friend of ours, Caitlin Casella doing what she was, she kind of jokingly called it a box jump, but with 80 year old patient and the patient was jumping onto like a big plate, like a 35 pound plate. So obviously it's not a box, right? But it's like, well, yeah, if you want to get this person the capacity to do something like that potentially, we have to, I mean, I think people understand that's not something you go from zero to a hundred, but I don't think people understand that there are steps along the way, or they don't under, they don't maybe see, it hasn't been communicated that there is importance to, and it's something that's important for people to work on these steps along the way.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think you're, I think you're spot on. i mean, I don't think that there's been enough identification of what, power is And as you say, like I think people go, oh, that's strength. And I'm like, yeah, it is. You can't be powerful without being strong. like You have to have a degree of generating force.
00:28:13
Speaker
But the idea is to do it quickly. The easiest way that to try and explain it to people is to say the biggest functional test for an older person in my city in downtown is to move across an intersection while the walk person is lit up before the hand comes up. Right. And then people go, yeah, yeah, that's, that's a big deal. And I'm like, it absolutely is right to do it within the time it takes to do that. You have to move fast and they go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, so that's velocity and force need to be able to walk.
00:28:50
Speaker
I'm like, and they go, yeah. And I'm like, that's power. h And they, and yes, it's walking power. And I get it. It's not lifting power per se, but ask an older person about who you don't want to be is you kind of don't want to be the slowest person. Totally. And the ability to do a few things is really a manifestation power.
00:29:12
Speaker
power as much as it is of strength. But you can't have one without the other. you It's hard to be powerful and not be strong and vice versa, right? But loads for power...
00:29:26
Speaker
or low. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the easiest way to do it. I think that I'll send you the rest and you, you can put them in for your, your listeners. And I think it'll make a whole lot of sense reading the, the health and fitness power issue.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah. Pretty good job. I have I have just a small wonky question about a little sentence in the ACSM that oh boy specified that actually jumping is not jumping is not power.
Myths and Facts About Protein Intake
00:29:54
Speaker
No, I mean, jumping is effectively is is a plyometric, but I mean, it's sort of one, yeah, I mean, it's a form of power training, but I don't know that I would say jump for power. It's a power exercise. Absolutely.
00:30:08
Speaker
One of the things that's pretty critical, as I said, is you have to layer in the strength stuff first, but I think that anybody can can jump. It's not necessarily pushing power per se.
00:30:21
Speaker
Is it because the supposedly body weight is too light of a load and therefore we're actually dealing more in the realms of contraction, velocity, and speed on that curve? Or is it? Like it's definitely down the low end, but it's it's the most functional end for some folks, particularly as they get older, right? So I would, you know, maybe I would quibble with the sentence. It's hard to go back and read parts of it that you think, why do we write it that way? And to remember that there were 13 authors on there. Right.
00:30:51
Speaker
independently arguing for their little piece yeah and then there were six reviewers who were like you need to say this you need and and so ultimately you probably say some things that to be frank in the end you're like man that's really not what i thought but well yeah i mean the way i interpreted it was that jumping is a fast movement and therefore maybe it it's more in the realms of the speed kind of capacity that we're looking at, or what's it's, it's on that like force velocity curve, it's lower load, faster contraction speed, but but that's assuming that body weight is a light load, right? But for older folks, body weights becomes a one rep max for some of them. Right. Amazing. Amazing load. It will be well, I mean, for most of the folks, and I'm just thinking of the people that we train in their 80s in particular, your body weight is, I mean, I'm not really interested in getting to do a hex bar lift or put put a buck 35 on their shoulders. That's, could care less. I mean, it's body weight that they really care about. So I think in that sense, you're probably right, Laurel. Like I'm thinking that for some people, like it's not that big of a load. And so it's really down the very light end of things, but it's functionally relevant.
00:32:14
Speaker
Right, right. And also, if we're using like walking speed as ah an assessment of someone's functional capacity, and then we determine that they actually are too slow, and we want them to speed up, you know, and we want them to improve their power, like isn't the test then...
00:32:33
Speaker
Evaluating the thing that we're trying to improve, you know, it's like I just i noticed that I noticed that there's some gray area between like when we're talking about speed versus power when we're talking about power versus strength. And I know that it's not always easy to identify exactly what we're trying to do because it always is probably going to be relative to the person and what they're the movement requires of them and how close it takes them to their maximum.
00:32:58
Speaker
strength or however we're evaluating the capacity. But yeah, I just, I find it interesting because I wonder how much of the science is directed more toward younger people for whom body weight is a light load.
00:33:11
Speaker
Right. And what is the, what is the lens that we're looking through when we come to these These name naming of capacities and and things like that. is a so I'm just, I'm talking out loud right now. I have clearly not really. I don't know. But the more I think about it, i the more I think about, it you know, in in younger athletes, then, you know, box jumps are, that's a great word expression of power. And there it's just your body weight. the difference And it's a jump.
00:33:34
Speaker
The height of the, the height of the jump. I mean, it, the epitomization is that yeah I mean, the coaching cue for power training is during the concentric phase of the left. Right. So during the shortening phase of the left move.
00:33:52
Speaker
with high velocity intent and focus on the intent word. And so it might not actually be that you move quickly move that fast, yeah but the intention to do it and queuing up that aspect of things is actually, i mean, that's what power is all about. So you could probably argue that the sentence doesn't really embody the science too well. So. Well, I think, I think to Laurel's point, if the coach, if the queuing is about move with the intent to go as fast as possible,
00:34:22
Speaker
That's a very nebulous thing to try to measure yeah from person to person. i think yeah I think part of the difficulty with all of this is that we so badly want things to kind of fit into very clean silos. And I just don't, I don't think that's kind of how it works. I think we get overlapping mechanisms happening at the same time and then often trying to tease out, is this exactly power or is it exactly something else? It maybe gets in the way of of the power outside the research and the clinical setting, like the real life setting, does it matter that much yeah if we're categorizing it into what category versus like, can this person get up out of a chair and go across the room?
00:35:01
Speaker
you Yeah, no, I think you're spot on. And I mean, I think it goes back to the whole idea of specificity, right? So if you're, If you're an athlete and you care about explosively jumping up and, or that's an important part of your sport, then that's how we train you. If you're an older person, then we don't try and train you for that, but we definitely train you for function. And so,
00:35:25
Speaker
Try to do things in the testing session and in the in gym, if we get our hands on you then to get you to improve the things that are important. So so we practice doing chair stands for older people. We practice stepping sideways and doing it with intent in older people. But we certainly don't put a parachute on them and have them run against a wind-resisted parachute or have them jump. Sorry, just laughing at me.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah. but Well, I mean, but that's the type of thing, right? I mean, it's right it's all, it's all relative to what you're talking about, but yeah, no, that's fair. It's all relative. Yeah. Should we switch over to protein?
00:36:06
Speaker
Okay, awesome. All right. Well, you are like the Michael Jordan of protein research, in addition to being the Michael Jordan of protein research. That's high compliment. There's a running debate in our house between my wife, who is a varsity basketball player, who says Michael Jordan is the goat, and my three sons who believe it's LeBron James. I try to just fade into the background of this. That generational debate, yeah. If my son's ever listened to this, I'm sorry, boys. I'm with mom on this. LeBron, in his own right, I get it, but the goat was Michael, for sure. Yeah, for sure. He was the OG goat. He's the OG goat, for sure. OG, for sure. Yeah, yeah. All right. So you wrote an article about protein recently called 2025 was the year protein jumped the shark, in which you argue that the science itself around protein intake hasn't radically changed, but the marketing and cultural interpretation have. One of the clearest lines in your article was, quote, protein doesn't bake the cake, exercise does. So our question is, do you think people are trying to nutritionalize their way out of exercising by just consuming a lot of protein?
00:37:19
Speaker
I don't know if they're trying to nutritional nutritionize their way out of exercise training. They're trying to proteinize their way out of a lot of things that aren't going to be solved by protein alone. So the article was at somewhat cathartic to write, but at the same time implicit in there is that I'm kind of happy to see that the.
00:37:40
Speaker
mainstream slash regular folks are beginning to appreciate the message that, and it's not just would be disingenuous to say it was, oh, Stu Phillips led the charge for more protein.
00:37:52
Speaker
There's a group of people that have sort of been beating that drum for a long time. And in the vein of it takes 17, 18, 20 plus years to see a message finally find its way into more public health. That's about how long it's taken. So message received good. And then of course, pendulum swings. And then I'm like, okay, stop right there. And it's like, you know, keeps going over here. And I'm like, whoa, you've got it. You've got it. you We could just stop. Oh, protein, protein, pop tart, you know? And I'm like,
00:38:29
Speaker
Oh yeah. You know, protein, protein water. And I'm like, yeah ah, you know, me protein gum the other day. And I'm like, How is that even a thing? Right. Protein gum. That's hilarious. I know. I know. Oh my God.
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah. And, and we're seeing as well, Laurel and I in particular deal with, or our audience rather is typically sort of like menopausal women, pre post Perry kind of thing. And we're seeing also like a huge push for ultra high protein intake in menopausal women Is this evidence-based? Is it partially evidence-based? Is it a hundred percent marketing and just something that like people who are now selling supplements to menopause, pausal women, or just, it's like one more thing they can sell them.
00:39:15
Speaker
What's your thoughts that? it's probably, if there's a D answer, it's kind of all of the above, right? So I do think that when we look at the studies that we've done, and and we do have a big trial in perimenopausal women going right now, women consume less protein than men. I think that across the board, it doesn't really matter, regardless of age. And, you know, that's sort of an an alarm bell for some people to say, oh, well, women aren't getting enough. And again, moving into older women, so not your age group, but 60s, 70s and beyond. That's the group that I worry about more than any other, to be honest with you. So you're in older age. And so really you're going to be losing muscle anyway. More protein would probably be beneficial.
00:40:04
Speaker
That group of women are the group of women who I really feel could benefit from more protein. I'd much rather that they exercise and lift some weights. I think that that's a de rigueur answer.
00:40:17
Speaker
But in fairness, you know, push it back a few years and say, are perimenopausal women in this sort of protein deficient state for which they require specific advice to consume more protein?
00:40:32
Speaker
and And the answer is no. Like I'm i'm hard pressed. In fact, i rolled this over in different ways to think, what would it be about going through perimenopause that would mean that you would need more protein? And the reality is is that the loss of, you know, a woman's menstrual cycle actually means that she's conserving protein.
00:40:56
Speaker
and And not giving it up. But I mean, one of the reasons why a younger women need more iron, need more protein, because they have a menstrual cycle. They're they're basically energetically, exp and if, you know, pregnancy, lactation, those are bona fide estates of requiring more protein. Mm-hmm.
00:41:15
Speaker
i've I've heard it said that this anabolic resistance, which is a term, you know, frankly, that we invented along with Mike Brenny, who's a former colleague. So it's odd to get it thrown back in your face to say these women are anabolically resistant and so they need more protein. And the truth is is that it's the muscle that's anabolically resistant. So trying to throw more and more and more protein at something that's saying, well, yeah I'm not using that is it's like trying to drive a nail into a rock.
00:41:49
Speaker
And so bigger nail, bigger hammer, still a rock. Yeah. To make the rock softer or more receptive to the protein, you have to exercise. That's what relieves anabolic resistance. More and more and more and more protein doesn't do it. So the jump the shark part, you know, and say...
00:42:09
Speaker
happy to introduce ah a group of young people to that term yes don't remember people are like don't remember happy days and the fonts and which i mean henry winkler if you don't you know know who that is is you look up the episode and you know effectively it's gone from you know a reasonably i think enjoy enjoyable 30 minute or 23 minute with commercial sitcom into into comedy, right? and And that's the jump the shark piece. and And I think the commercialization now of protein has just, as I said, it's gone beyond what anybody would reasonably need from a, which can be done with regular food, sort of protein
Practical Protein Consumption Advice
00:42:49
Speaker
intake. It's just a bit disappointing to see, I think is the probably where I would sit on that i think one. think one of the challenges for people in understanding all of this is the fact that the recommendations are so
00:43:03
Speaker
you know, for, for one of a better term wonk heavy, because how is a regular person going to be like, okay, 1.2 grams per kilogram of my body weight. First of all, I don't know what I weigh in kilograms. I'm in America. I'm a dumb, dumb. Now I have to go do math and then I have to figure out how to put that in. like yeah I got it. What do I have to start measuring my hamburgers? Like, yeah, is there an easier way for people to just kind of like understand roughly how much protein they want to get in a day or per meal? Like, are is there is there more colloquial language we can use that would be a lot more helpful than like, bleep, blop, bloop, get out, dr you know what I mean? Like- Okay, where you're going to force me into an often used trope is that base 10 math is really difficult. Wait, hold on, it's actually not. Yeah. But that's what metric uses. So just be bear with me as your emotional support Canadian. did To be fair, I grew up in England, so I'm not i'm more comfortable with the metric system. Well, then i can't do I can't do stone. measure is like That's ancient, right? The British talk, oh, it's about eight stones. I'm like, right no nobody talks that except you know you folks. It's true.
00:44:15
Speaker
To be really clear. You know, 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram is about 0.35. And I know that I'll round it. You say 0.3 grams per pound of body weight. And to your point, what does that mean to the average person? The answer is, is that it's not a lot of protein. And so... you can kind of I think you can get that with real food relatively easily.
00:44:43
Speaker
When you say real food, you mean as opposed to things like a protein something that? You don't need a protein bar. You don't need a supplement. You don't need protein water. You don't need, yeah, like all of that stuff is that you can, you know, if you eat dairy and you eat eggs and and then and you're an omnivore, I think it's a snap.
00:45:03
Speaker
yeah If you're vegetarian, I don't think it's too bad. If you're vegan, I think you just have to be a bit more judicious about it. But we're talking about intakes that are at least twice that high. So up around 0.7 grams per pound. Now, if you 120 pounds, then, you know, it's about 100 grams of protein.
00:45:24
Speaker
Is it hard to get? Not in my opinion, but it does require a slightly different focus, particularly at the meal where most folks and it's men or women, it doesn't matter under I'll call it consume protein and that's breakfast. Right. So that first meal of the day, I think just requires a sort of shifting from carbohydrate centric, grain centric towards a little bit of protein. Everybody's like, what's, what's your go-to? And I'm like, well,
00:45:52
Speaker
Greek style yogurt is made breakfast kind of a snap. And I don't like yogurt. I'm like, then it's okay to have an egg. I'm like, oh, I thought eggs had cholesterol. That was going to kill you. I'm like, nope, they're off the dirt list. It's okay to eat an egg. I'm besides dairy has a lot of high quality protein. Oh, I'm lactose intolerant. I'm like plenty of dairy alternatives, soy beverage, soy milk, whatever you want to call it.
00:46:19
Speaker
very good protein, very high quality. And everybody says, oh, well, what about oat milk? And I'm like, oat milk, not so much because it's it's low in protein, right? it's It's actually oat beverage, I think would be much more appropriate. So you just have to kind of read the label a little bit and think a little bit more about protein than you do about about carbohydrates at breakfast. And that would be the one meal that if anybody could kind of tweak and say, Let's turn up the protein in that. It would be the one that I would target for sure.
00:46:50
Speaker
Cool. Well, I think that's it for us. Thank you so much for coming back. Yes. appreciate it. And if you don't want to take them any more of your time. You're very welcome. Look, like I do these because I think it's really important. In Canada, there are no private universities. So everything is a public institution. And I think it's really important for, I'm not like I'm effectively,
00:47:12
Speaker
a civil servant. My salary is paid by taxpayers for a large part. So I think it's really important that I try and do some sort of public facing stuff. So thank you for the platform.
Conclusion and Appreciation
00:47:23
Speaker
And I'll say this and sincerely, you guys do a great job.
00:47:28
Speaker
You say and do a lot of the things that honestly, i kind of wish I could do because i can love your reference. Yeah.
00:47:40
Speaker
I'm not gonna lie. I love that you just hear like, this person here, and I'm like, And I know I hate to say that because everybody goes, well, you got to keep it professional. And i'm like, right.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah. You know, so just a confession. i also grew up in the UK, Sarah, and I'm a hockey player. bob oh you are? sure Yeah. And an ice hockey guy. So you can't take that out of me. So actually, if I could drop F-bombs everywhere, I kind of would. Yeah.
00:48:15
Speaker
I know we're lucky. we We kind of live in this in-between space where we can get away with a lot of things. that you You keep it real. And just sincerely, ah you're you're a pleasure to follow and listen. And i always really enjoy your your guys' posts there. They're great. So keep up the good work. Thank Thank you very much. and Appreciate youre welcome We really appreciate it. Take care. a great weekend. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
00:48:47
Speaker
All right, well, we really hope you enjoyed part two of our interview with Stu. We had a great time talking with him. i could have talked to him for hours. I know Laurel could have as well. please do us a favor.
00:48:58
Speaker
If you like the work that we put out for free, help us. You basically pay us for this work. If you rate or review or subscribe or forward this to a friend or do some sort of free promotional work for us, but please help us get this out. If you like it and you think there's value to it, other people will as well.
00:49:19
Speaker
Don't forget to sign up for the barbell mini course. That is at the show notes and we'll see you in two weeks.