Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
132: Dr. Stu Phillips Part 1: Bone Density and Scientific Nuance
2 Playsin 1 day
In this episode, Sarah and Laurel sit down with Dr. Stu Phillips, one of the world's most influential researchers in muscle physiology, protein metabolism, and resistance training. Together they discuss why Stu publicly challenged the idea that heavy lifting is required for bone density, what the evidence actually says about load and osteogenesis, and how newer research has changed the conversation around both muscle growth and bone health.
Stu explains why many long-held training beliefs—including the need for heavy weights for hypertrophy—have not held up under scrutiny, why good scientists must be willing to change their minds, and how concepts like effort and "progressive stimulus" may matter more than specific loading prescriptions.
The conversation also explores what researchers know (and still don't know) about bone adaptation, site-specific bone responses, impact training, mechanical loading, and the challenges of translating animal research into human recommendations. Finally, Stu shares his thoughts on protein obsession, exercise guidelines, weight loss stigma, and the importance of following the evidence wherever it leads.
ABOUT Power Play
FOLLOW @TheMovementLogic on Instagram
WATCH Movement Logic on YouTube
LEARN MORE on the Movement Logic website
FOLDABLE HOME BARBELL RACK by Verse, use coupon code MovementLogic10%OFF at checkout
Barbell Mini Course from Movement Logic
RESOURCES
Kistler-Fischbacher et al. (2021) Exercise and Bone Density
Watson et al (2018) LIFTMOR Trial
Currier et al (2026) ACSM Position Stand on Resistance Training and Muscle Hypertrophy
Recommended
Transcript
Changing Narratives in Science
00:00:00
Speaker
think some people get locked into narratives and I understand that from a, I'll just call it a more of a marketing perspective. This is who I am. This is my persona. This is my message, but that's not science, right? So like you, people like have said, what have you changed your mind on? I'm like, how much time do you have? yeah yeah Several core paradigms of what I thought was true. The importance of protein. Yeah.
00:00:26
Speaker
Not so important. The importance of plant versus animal protein. Not so important, et cetera, et cetera. And even myself, like with the lighter weight and the muscle adaptation, I'm like, I thought it was true. And then go you you do your own study and you're like, oh.
00:00:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So my dad didn't go to university, but he's pretty sharp guy. And he said, what good is a mind if you can't change
Meet the Hosts and Their Mission
00:00:51
Speaker
it? Right? I'm Laurel Beversdorf, 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.
00:01:07
Speaker
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? 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.
00:01:41
Speaker
Welcome to the movement logic podcast. My name is Dr. Sarah court. I'm a physical therapist and I am joined by my co-host. I always want to say Dr. Laurel Beaversdorf. She's a doctor to me. Madam, Madam, Madam Beaversdorf, CSCS certified strength and conditioning specialist. Yeah. I think we can just, we can just leave it at that.
00:02:03
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Not, not doctor certified. Not yoga teacher, because I just have not taught yoga in a long time. And i mean even though I'll always be a yoga teacher, I'm not currently teaching yoga. And I don't have any plans to do any of that in the near future. Yeah, fair. you just say so Just say strength coach.
Laurel's Marathon Triumph
00:02:20
Speaker
Strength coach. I have a question. could We've recorded this a little bit in advance, but currently Laurel has done the marathon.
00:02:28
Speaker
Woo-woo! How can we get a sort of, I know you're going to talk more about it on your own podcast. Can we get sort of a 15 second, 30 second summary? Okay. The short version is that I got the stomach flu on Tuesday with our Monday race. The stomach flu better and went away about mid Saturday.
00:02:50
Speaker
My friend gave me two liters of IV fluids on Sunday morning. A nice friend. Oh, so nice. Actually, might've been actually a Saturday afternoon. I don't remember, but I got two liters of IV fluids, which is the maximum amount she said I could have safely. And I held down an entire plate of Gnocchi Saturday night. That's when I knew i was turning it around. Then I carb loaded all day Sunday and Monday I ran and I PR'd my marathon.
00:03:17
Speaker
yeah I got a 15 second faster time. It's hard to believe that you can yeah just run that entire race and beat your time by 15 seconds. I mean, it comes down to the wire. yeah My legs stopped working around mile 20, 22, really started to have some cramping where like, despite trying to take another step forward, sometimes my legs were like, not there. It's like they were thank you offline. And then I got to the finish line and I had to sit in a wheelchair and be wheeled into the medical tent and they helped me be able to walk again. And then i obviously qualified for Boston. I mean, almost
00:03:53
Speaker
certainly qualified for Boston again. I don't know that I'm going to run it again next
Speaking Engagements and Burnout
00:03:56
Speaker
year. I think it's a little too soon. Plus Sarah and I, Sarah and I have a, should we talk about that? We can, I mean, yes, it's not happening for a while, but sure. Well, next year around Boston Marathon time, Sarah and I are going which is late, late April. Sarah and I are going to be speaking at the Real Coaches Summit.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yep. So we'll put that link in the bio and the show notes. Somewhere. We'll put it somewhere. I guess it's almost sold out, but it's in Las Vegas, Nevada. And we're speaking alongside Alyssa Olenek. I like to say that because she's the superstar in my eyes, but she's going to be there. And then a bunch of other cool folks are going to be there. So if you're, if you're interested you want to come to a cool strength training and strength and conditioning coaches summit, that's going to happen sometime around the end of April. So yeah we'll have firmer dates hopefully soon, but anyway, yeah, I don't know that I want to be training for a marathon and getting ready to go speak at a summit. And honestly, like my dad died
00:04:53
Speaker
His birthday was on the Boston marathon. That plus like taking two classes for my master's degree and then also coaching my daughter's softball team all at the same time put me over the edge, right? see how it would Just a little bit of burnout, just a little bit of I'm over it.
00:05:10
Speaker
So im mix I'm just really enjoying not exercising very much these days. Nice. Wonderful. Doing a lot of gardening. But yeah, thank you for asking. The marathon was, against all odds, ah a huge success. I'm very, very happy with how it turned out. I had a blast with my friends who joined me from like kindergarten and sixth grade, like friends, friends for a long time. Yeah.
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah. I was, I won't lie. I was worried. I was worried when, yeah when I started getting a text about the stomach bug, I was like, Oh, sh it that's about the worst thing you could have in terms of yeah minor illnesses before a marathon. Any sort of like gastrointestinal problems is not what you want. Not not good.
00:05:50
Speaker
You would be better off having like a broken wrist. Yeah. and so You know what I mean? Yeah. But yes at the same time, i knew, i knew this was Laurel. And I knew, I was like, honestly, like if anyone's going to pull this out, she will.
00:06:03
Speaker
Truly, truly. So yeah, I mean, I was, you well I was going to, I was going to do whatever it took to cross the line. Like, so I had worked out, I had worked out a walk, run pace. I was like, I'm, I can, I think I can i remember. laura texted me So you texted me being like, okay, so I can definitely still finish it. If I walk, run, it'll take six hours. i was like, okay.
00:06:24
Speaker
But I so also had a feeling that that's not what was goingnna happen. And it didn't. So kudos to you. So today, oh my God, I'm, I'm like, just fizzing with excitement about
Introducing Dr. Stu Phillips
00:06:37
Speaker
this. So we got a chance to sit down and talk to Dr. Stu Phillips, who if you're on Instagram at all and you follow people like us and Lauren Colenzo Semple and Amanda Thieb and all of those other people who are- yeah her Susan Davis, Stu Phillips is, is people, people think about like calling someone iconic and they think maybe like Lady Gaga to me, Stu Phillips is iconic in thecent in the same capacity as Lady Gaga, but for very different reasons. He's the kind of the Michael Jordan of like exercise science researches specifically around hypertrophy and specifically around protein. Yeah. And at the same time, what a fucking nice guy.
00:07:19
Speaker
No ego, so humble, so kind. And we're thrilled that he, he said he likes our work. Yes. Oh my God. He complimented us. You guys, we were both like, he spent more time complimenting us than we were complimenting him. I know. I looked at Laurel at that moment and I was like,
00:07:37
Speaker
I know. I know. We're like, keep talking. Go on. What happened during the interview is we had some technical issues. We had some sound issues. We had to stop and start. So we ended up with a much shorter interview than we hoped, but you're going to hear that here today.
00:07:51
Speaker
And because he's such a kind and generous human being, Stu, as he told us to call him, has agreed to do a second interview. So we're goingnna have a part two with Stu.
00:08:03
Speaker
Part two with Stu. Part two with Stu, but please do enjoy this part one with Stu. We did get in some good questions. Yeah. Despite it being short, it is full of gold. Nuggets. Yes. Gold nuggets. So many amazing takeaways in like one of my new favorite terms.
Lift for Longevity Course
00:08:20
Speaker
When he said that, I was like, in my head, flashing on the number of social media posts that we can make about progressive progressive stimulus. It just solves a lot of problems in my head. really does. Before we get into the interview, we just want to let you know that our lift for longevity course, which has been on a bit of a hiatus is coming back at the beginning of September. We have not yet picked an exact date. We're going to do that, but sort of that back to school labor day timeframe is, is what we're thinking. If you want to get a little bit of an intro to lifting barbells as a preparation for our lift for longevity course, which a lot of people do, you can get our barbell mini course, which is 100% free.
00:08:59
Speaker
You can sign up for the barbell mini course at the link in our show notes and you get a, I mean, just chock full of good information on how to do a deadlift, how to do a squat and how to do a bench press, which are sort of the three really foundational lifts of weightlifting. They're not the only ones obviously. And a lot of great information around fitness.
00:09:20
Speaker
terms that you need to know for weightlifting, like progressive overload, or perhaps we're going to start saying progressive stimulus, reps in reserve, RPE, all that kind of stuff. So all of that, you get a ton of learning around for the bar within the barbell mini course. And then, and then you're in good situation to just roll right into our main course. So you can sign up for that at the link in our show notes.
00:09:43
Speaker
And is there anything else we need to add before we get on with the interview? No. Okay. Well, here you go.
Influence of Stu Phillips' Research
00:09:56
Speaker
Dr. Stuart Phillips is a distinguished university professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Skeletal Muscle Health. He is a full professor in kinesiology and an adjunct professor in the School of Medicine at mcmasters McMaster University.
00:10:10
Speaker
He's a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, ACSM, and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. His research is focused on the impact of nutrition and exercise on human skeletal muscle protein turnover. He is also keenly interested in diet and exercise-induced changes in body composition.
00:10:29
Speaker
He currently has more than 33,000 career citations. That's bananas. And 400 original scientific research and review papers. It's just an astonishing amount of work. Dr. Phillips has given us permission to call him Stu. So Stu, I don't know if you know our background with your work, but a few years ago, we came across your Instagram posts discussing the 2021 Kistler-Fischbacher systematic review and meta-analysis around bone density, what exercises promote bone density. And it had a major impact on us.
00:11:03
Speaker
Oh, cool. At the time, our Lift for Longevity weightlifting course was heavily influenced by the LIFTMORE trial, which concluded that heavy lifting and impact training were necessary to improve bone density. So we built our six-month course around progressing women towards heavy barbell training.
00:11:20
Speaker
Right. And then we saw your posts yeah summarizing the review findings that bone density could improve with moderate and even lighter loads as well. And we realized that we had to change our message. We could no longer honestly claim that the older evidence was superior to this review.
00:11:37
Speaker
yeah We didn't abandon heavy lifting because we still see enormous value in teaching women to lift heavy. And our course already included lighter and moderate training as well, because you have to on-ramp to heavy. You don't start there. But we felt it was important to publicly acknowledge that newer evidence had changed our thinking.
00:11:56
Speaker
And so we made a podcast episode about it. We posted about it online that we like we are changing our message. Because in an online space full of grift, especially around women's health and especially around bone health, we we wanted to model what it looks like to update your message when the evidence changes.
00:12:15
Speaker
All of that to say, we are very glad for your work. And we consider you a highly trustworthy resource. So thank you. Well, thanks. Thanks. That's very gracious of you to say. I just need to point out, it's not my work, but it was definitely a review of some work, well, done by the same author of the Liffmore trial. I mean, there's, I think, I don't know if that's ironic, but it's certainly an interesting twist because when I started saying that message about bone,
00:12:43
Speaker
everybody defaulted to Belinda Beck's Liffmore trial and they said, have you read this? I'm like, I have. Have you? Not only have I. the thing. It actually, yeah, well well, we'll get into it, I'm sure. Yeah.
00:12:59
Speaker
All right, so can we let's let's get into it. Let's talk about that systematic review and meta analysis for a bit. So first of all, what motivated you to make a post about it four years after it was published?
Heavy Lifting Myths Debunked
00:13:11
Speaker
Was it that I'm assuming it wasn't because you had just encountered it, but was it because there was perhaps another reason like a bunch of meatheads, don't know, us? who were touting it must be heavy, lift heavy shit, you can only build bone with heavy weights. And and and you wanted to spread the word that that maybe not necessarily true.
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think that like my initial interest was mainly stemmed ah a lot from some of our work that we were doing in muscle. And again, to sort of slightly shift the paradigm, the sort of what what's what's called the strength endurance continuum in muscle says that down at the heavy end of of just a few repetitions that develops strength. And that's absolutely spot on true.
00:13:55
Speaker
It's as much to do with coordination and lifting as it is with anything else, because it it then said that the sweet spot in quotation marks for hypertrophy was somewhere between eight to 12 repetitions.
00:14:09
Speaker
And then as you moved away from that, it's, ah it showed hypertrophy diminishing and our work and that of a number of other labs basically showed that that range of repetitions that was good for hypertrophy. As long as you work to, you don't need absolute drag them out, drop dead failure. In other words, you can't do it and you need a spotter.
00:14:32
Speaker
But you need to come close to that. And so muscle, it is not bone, I'll admit to that, but it is mechanically sensitive. And we were sort of pushing this lower load works narrative and evidence-based, not just the narrative. And I think that now that we we're sort of beyond the point of people saying that that's not correct. Well, some people still are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's That's okay. I'm over it. Like, we just published the ACSM position stand, and I'm like, the evidence is... So if you want to argue counterfactually to that, you're you're out to lunch. Like, I think the evidence is overwhelming. Now, preference is another thing and all kinds of things. So, and then the interesting part was, we were i kept...
Understanding Menopause and Exercise Loads
00:15:17
Speaker
posting on the muscle outcome in there because I get that. And then a lot of women were saying, what about bone? You have to lift heavy shit as you pointed out.
00:15:27
Speaker
And I was like, Well, actually that's not true. There's this meta analysis and I said, it's done by a very good group and it's actually touted by Belinda Beck, who's the lift more senior author and the senior author on the meta analysis in interacting with her on X as evidence saying that, you look, you need to lift heavy loads. I'm like, actually your own meta analysis says you you don't. Like your your own data shows that other loads work too.
00:15:55
Speaker
And actually the evidence for the heavier loads, and it's mostly I'm sure because there's not as many trials done in that area is it it works, but it's not. And this is where it really begun to rub me a little bit because, I'll give you my, so my wife is a cardiovascular physiologist and at the time she's going through menopause. And so I'm watching from the outside in and going like, this is crazy. Like if if men had to go through this, have had a global task force to solve it by lunchtime. Right. So the women just grin and bear at ladies. And I thought this is really a disservice. And so then you start clicking on a few things on Instagram because all my wife and all of her friends are all searching for answers.
00:16:47
Speaker
And I'm like, well, we know what causes a hot flash. And my wife, cardiovascular physiologist, don't pick an argument, um wrong person, also perimenopausal, like double that was like, no dot, we dot, don't dot. And i was like,
00:17:03
Speaker
And I, so I started doing, we don't like we have, we have ideas and we know it's vasomotor. But what causes it? I thought, how can we not know this? And so I'm getting on Instagram.
00:17:16
Speaker
Probably had about 20, 30,000 followers at the time. Thought I'm doing okay. And I'm getting these clips sent to me from prominent MDs. You've taken an issue with several, so I don't think it's bad to say Vonda Wright is one of them.
00:17:31
Speaker
Saying you need to. And we go to great lengths in my lab when I'm talking to my students to distinguish the between need and sufficient.
00:17:44
Speaker
yeah So heavy loads are sufficient to improve muscle, bone, tendon. Are they needed?
00:17:54
Speaker
And the answer is is no. So I think that that we can put up underscore under that is saying, That's what sort of primarily motivated me to say, everybody keeps citing the lift more trial and the lift more trial was a trial of a, an at home exercise group versus a group that lifted heavy weights. So it's really, it's a, like, it's a appropriate design for control group, but a control group that's not lifting lighter weights. They're essentially doing like nothing.
00:18:29
Speaker
And that's fine. Yeah. Pilates kind of, Pilates-based exercise. And even if you read the trial, the the control group in there wasn't even designed to affect their bone density. So by design, it's it's it's going to show a difference. and But that's been taken as heavy weights are needed. And I'm like, that's not what the design showed. yeah yeah It's actually not what the paper could conclude, but it has been the narrative that Dr. Beck and others have sort of spun off of that. And Vonda Wright is another one who has said, you need to do this. yeah And I'm like, no, you don't.
00:19:05
Speaker
It's interesting. Yeah. it data Yeah, it is interesting of of the menopause and their various sort of like angles and things. Vonda Wright does seem to be the one that's that's very stuck on this. You need to lift heavy model.
00:19:19
Speaker
Stacey Sims is kind of another one, not necessarily for bone. She just thinks it's for like women's health generally. No, Stacey Sims is still stuck on it. has to be heavy for muscle. Right. to be clear. Yeah. And that's, that's, that's actually, I don't see how you have a leg to stand on i know yeah with that because that's been shown to be untrue in men, women, older men, older women and everything else. And have me back in about 18 months and we'll give you the data on perimenopause as well, because we've got that trial going. And then after that, which I don't see any reason why the physiology would be any different from a muscular perspective. then what what do you lean on? But I think some people get locked into narratives and I understand that from a I'll just call it a more of a marketing
Evolving Scientific Beliefs
00:20:07
Speaker
perspective. This is who I am. This is my persona. This is my message. But that's that's not science, right? So like you, people like have said, what have you changed your mind on? I'm like, how much time do you have? Three or four, several like several core paradigms of what I thought was true. The importance of protein, yeah not so important. The importance of plant versus animal protein, not so important, etc et cetera, et cetera. And even myself, like with the lighter weight and the muscle adaptation, I'm like...
00:20:41
Speaker
I thought it was true. And then go you you do your own study and you're like, oh, oh, yeah. So. My dad didn't go to university, but he's pretty sharp guy. And he said, what good is a mind if you can't change it? Right. But some people are just willing to budge off of the the stance that they have. And I understand that for a lot of reasons, but it's it's now now you're just ah a denier of ah of data and science. and Yeah. And ultimately it's doing a disservice. Yeah.
00:21:10
Speaker
I don't have a million followers or anything else like that. so Yeah. So if we talk about... bone and its response to
Effective Exercise Loads for Bone Health
00:21:19
Speaker
load. We know for muscle hypertrophy, we're talking a lot now about effort and proximity to failure. Like you said, not absolute failure, but, but getting close to it. Yeah.
00:21:28
Speaker
Do you think there's an equivalent concept for bone? Meaning like our sets of exercises more effective for bone when they're taken close enough to failure or is bone or is bone more dependent on absolute load?
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know that I can give you a definitive answer. My sense is that based on the meta-analysis and based on, well, several other systematic reviews and meta-analyses, as well as what we call some network meta-analyses in BONE, is that a lot of things tend to work and probably it's the more consistent you are in the behavior in terms of loading,
00:22:06
Speaker
that determines the long-term outcomes. So I think that there's probably more overlap with respect to the range of loads that work for bone, as opposed to it all has to be down here in the heavy end, because that's what the rodent and the animal data suggests, right? which is I can understand that as the platform to test that in in people and and say that it it works. But I think that the we're going to find that more loads than are currently we sort of talked about it in a more popular sense are available.
00:22:42
Speaker
going to work for bone. The proximity to failure part is maybe not as true in bone. Actually, it is in muscle muscle. You have to do it because it recruits all then at the muscle fibers, but bone is really, we know from the impact work is you only need to do about 15 20 jumps and That impact is, and that's what bone, that's all it needs. And then if you do more than that, it actually, it's as if it it switches off. So the mechanical sensation in bone is a little bit different. So I'm not sure I could definitively say, but I do have a ah colleague and maybe you could have Laura Gian Gregorio. She's from the University of Waterloo on your show. If you haven't already, she she would she's the bone queen around here. so Nice.
00:23:29
Speaker
All right. Definitely going to write that down on our short list. Yeah. all right. So these papers categorized interventions by intensity, or rather the Kistler-Fischbacher paper categorized interventions by intensity.
00:23:43
Speaker
But exercise intensity itself is quite tricky to define across different modes. So they had so many different modes of ways that impact was introduced, even resistance was introduced. So how confident are you that we actually know what the key osteogenic variable is Yeah. And I think that goes back to my, my previous answer. I don't know that I could say I'm like, oh, it's rock solid. This is absolutely the way it happens. So to your point, I think, and this has sort of been in the same to use the low load, high load sort of thing is that heavier loads when you lift them and you fail after doing it eight to 10 times is simply the inability to generate muscular force. I use this, but I think of like a knee extension or some leg extension. And everybody cranked the weight stack, slams down. You're like, okay, I'm done. Lighten it up and go to close to failure or failure.
00:24:41
Speaker
It's still intense at the end, but it's a different mechanism that leads to the fatigue, right? So it's more of a metabolite buildup and and it hurts. But I think it still feels intense, right? But the intensity is used in resistance exercises if it's analogous to intensity in aerobic exercise. So heavier loads are close to 100% VO2 peak and lighter loads are somewhere down here. And I don't think that they're completely congruent in that you can translate it like that. But it's a great question, and Laurel, and and I like can really do appreciate it. I still think effort has a lot to do with it. Is this sort of the internal ah that I feel like that's a, and we have a facility down here, 500 community members, average age about 73. And we have RPE scales pasted everywhere. And 10 out of 10 is red.
00:25:35
Speaker
Nine out 10 is orange, seven and eight out of 10 are yellow. And we're like, we, I don't need you to be in the red, but I'd like you to get at least into the yellow.
00:25:45
Speaker
if you're feeling good, try for the orange. And after it takes about a month or two, people begin to appreciate what that is. And they, the feedback is there. I want to say that that would translate into a bone, positive bone outcome if repeated over time. Mm-hmm. But there's probably some sort of trade off. And I'd agree even in muscle, lighter weights at a certain point are, you know, it's not like picking up and lifting your your cell phone like a thousand times. That's definitely endurance. So there's probably a load range that you need to fit into. But my guess is it's probably a lot broader than we're thinking.
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah, I know intensity and strength training is sometimes defined as proximity to your max. Yeah. But then also sometimes defined as proximity to like 10. on an RPE scale of one to 10. And so it's sometimes it's like, which is it? Cause they're different. Yeah.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And, and no, and absolutely. I mean, I think the classic sort of percent of your max is, is the, aerobic analogy to you're working at one hundred percent of VO two peak and you can sustain that for like a minute or two maybe, and then you're done.
00:26:59
Speaker
But I don't think it's exactly the same sort of thing. In other words, if you're down at 30% of your VO two peak, then you can ride for. hours. But if you're 30% of your 1RM, depending on what load it is,
00:27:13
Speaker
It's still pretty hard work. Like you probably are going to fail in certain lifts at around 25 to 30 repetitions. That's a lot of reps. And it gets painful. and and And yeah, it, it, it hurts at the end. and yeah And we ask, we just finished a big trial in women.
00:27:30
Speaker
And we said at the end, like rank your, and they're like, yeah, I call that intense. Right. Intensity is it sort of classically is defined, I think is, is perceptual in the end.
00:27:43
Speaker
Right. Well, one is trying to be more objective, right? It's trying to be more objective in that like we're within this percentage of your maximum, which we tested with an one RM max. And so now we're being objective. And the other one is like, how, how hard was that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have another rep? It's like, well, yeah.
00:28:00
Speaker
If, if, if you're going to give me a thousand dollars type concept, right? That's the, do I need the spotter? And I'm like, so okay. So all of these workouts, we're going to show you how to do. you won't need a spotter. So we don't need that last like vein popping out of your head rep, but we need for you to to feel like if I do one more, I'll be there. Or if I've got two more, maybe three and yeah So while we're talking about the Kistler-Fischbacher systematic review and meta-analysis, one of the things that we thought was interesting is that
00:28:37
Speaker
Overall, in terms of where bone density was improved in the body, they found that the lumbar spine overall responded better to load than the femoral neck.
00:28:50
Speaker
Is there like a mechanical reason why we would expect with with resistance training of any load taken to the right and effort and all that kind of stuff, is there any reason we would expect some sites to respond better than other sites? Like sometimes I'll have a patient come in and they're like, well, my DEXA score this for my spine and this for my hip. Is this going to help both of those? And I'm always kind of like, meh.
00:29:16
Speaker
So is there a reason why we might expect some areas to respond better than others just from like a biomechanical standpoint? Yeah, i mean, I think the key point there is the compressive forces that you would have in a spine simply from standing up and then doing anything that loads the spine. So if you put a ah bar across your shoulders and you're going to squat down and push it up, then that's immediately going to have some biomechanical forces that that are going to compress the spine, turn on all the processes and bone to be able to respond.
00:29:49
Speaker
To get your femoral neck to respond, you essentially, you're going to have to load the hip as well. So it's not like a squat wouldn't work. It's a little bit tougher to sort of get the right forces that compress that joint because it's not operating in an up down plane. It's basically operating on sort of a sideways angle. And so you've got to do something. to engage your hips effectively. So cross hip maneuvers or anything like a hip hinge will load your femoral neck, but your spine's a big column of bone and your femoral neck is actually, it's a tiny little sort of head between a ball and a socket joint there. And it's tougher to respond. mean, I think that it's a biomechanical and maybe site-specific answer to the question. The same would be true of your wrist if you're looking at your wrist bone mineral density you would have to do something that engages that part of your body to improve your bone mineral density there but those three common sites that are surveyed to effectively look at where these these programs have their effects so you've got to do something that's site specific for sure would it possibly be because there are no muscles that attach directly to the femoral neck
00:31:02
Speaker
Okay, well, you've got the anatomy down. So, spot on. Yeah, there's nothing pulling on directly. don't think start talking about that, but effectively, yes. I mean, you have nothing that really sort of pulls or there's not a tendon that crosses that joint that you go, oh, you're going to pull. Yeah.
00:31:18
Speaker
I mean, anything that effectively gets you a good hip hinge in there. So it is a deadlift. It is a squat. It is. And I know everybody imagines then hundreds of pounds and and that's not necessarily true. i think is the, as the meta-analysis even shows. So spot on. There's nothing that bridges and comes across. And so you can pull on this muscle and then load that particular area of bone. Yeah. We, we, we interviewed Dr. Belinda Beck and we've done a fair amount of reading on osteogenesis and the biomechanics of that and how bone responds to forces. And like, I've heard a couple of things. Like I heard some, I heard Greg Knuckles on the Stronger by Science podcast talk about how It's like the muscles simultaneously contracting around a bone that creates a compression on the bone because muscle forces are so damn high. yeah Because many of them are disadvantaged. And so they have to create like a lot more tension just to move the bone based on how they attach and things like that. And then Belinda Beck talked a lot about the bending forces that happen to the bone. Yeah. Which ends up being...
00:32:29
Speaker
more of a tensile load or a shearing load. And then you hear about impact and that bends the bone. But now you're talking about the barbell creating compression, just the sheer mass of the barbell creating compression on the bone. And there's all these ideas of the type of loading that causes the bone to grow itself stronger.
Mechanical Forces in Bone Growth
00:32:50
Speaker
So it it seems like we we maybe don't really actually know for sure exactly what it is. Is that right? Or is it because all of it? So I think it would be fair to say that from animal models and this, I mean, this is the genesis of this sort of high load only works yeah hypothesis, right? Is that in it, there's this model that effectively from animals says is that the higher loads really are the only ones that work. And then you've got to remember that most of the animal models come from rodents and rodents don't stand like this. They're down on all fours. and So their skeletal muscle structure and how things work is fundamentally different. They're similarly jointed, but not exactly the same as how humans work. And to your point, I mean, I think that the, i mean, we're only now beginning to sort of peel back some of the what's known as mechanical tension hypotheses and muscle to understand how a tissue translates tension
00:33:50
Speaker
into making new proteins. and you Bone is a fundamentally different tissue. You've got two different groups of cells and how they sense mechanical tension, again, is one of these areas that I think is definitely probably better developed than muscle, but still pretty incomplete. And so i would probably, i would guess The type of advances we're seeing in muscle where lower loads. And so instead of this sort of this is the sweet spot for hypertrophy and it doesn't happen here and it doesn't happen here is now, well, that's not true. We've we've got a range of loads that we know. Bone changes much over much longer periods. They're much tougher studies to do than muscle. And that combined with what are all the load ranges that we'd need to do? You can see how these things begin to scale up and bone is, I used to think it was the physiology of bricks and mortar and all deference to bone people. That's not true, but but it changes slowly. So you need a minimum six month intervention, better yet one year to see DEXA changes, which are kind of the gold standard. You can see changes in markers sooner, but our our knowledge in that area is pretty incomplete. So I think that that's ah that's a fair comment.
00:35:10
Speaker
I had a follow-up about the wrist bone building. Yeah. If we're, if we're thinking, because that's obviously a concern for, for some of my older patients. And if we're thinking about traditional weight training and doing things like rows and overhead press and and all of the kind of like chest press, all that kind of thing, do we need in terms of the risk specifically,
00:35:36
Speaker
Are we better off with something that might create more of a compressive force? So like maybe a bench press is better than a, than a row, which would be not a compressive force or like maybe ah a pushup is better. What do we have any understanding of like what positions or movements or loads are optimal for the risk specifically? Yeah, the answer is I don't think we do. And not nothing that I've seen is like, this is better than that. So it's, I mean, it's something that's going to load that area. So a bench press, put your wrist back and you're pushing up, that's engaging the right
00:36:12
Speaker
muscles in here that are pulling on the right tendons and affecting the bone structure in that space. One of the things that we do know with bone, and again, unlike muscle, is that muscle, you load it, you load it, and the more sort of loading you do, it's like, oh, that's awesome. And it becomes this big sponge for all the nutrients and it gets better.
00:36:31
Speaker
If bone has a mechanism that you, when you load it or you you get impact, you do that after about 15 or 20 times and the bone's like, okay, that's enough of that.
00:36:42
Speaker
Like I'm effectively, so if you do a hundred jumps or a hundred loads, or it's not better. And so it's really a small dose and and the impact that it likes and that sort of thing. You don't need to do more. More is not necessarily better. consistently Consistency, for sure. But to your point, I don't think that we're at that level of understanding about this would be better than that. yeah yeah Loading around the joint is sort of the best kind of prescriptive advice that we could give, for sure.
00:37:17
Speaker
Should we do our quick fire round? Yeah, we have some quick fire short answers only questions. Okay. So this is the challenge. your best. Short only. It's hard as a scientist This is good for you. This is your protein.
00:37:32
Speaker
Okay. So number one, most absurd protein product you have seen so far? Protein water. Okay. Yeah, that's wild.
00:37:44
Speaker
Well, you know, but first putting water in containers and selling it to people is, that grates me already. think my dad, God bless him, said it best. He goes, Fiji, Fiji water. He goes, I've been to Fiji. He said, they don't have enough water to export. And now they're exporting it. I'm like, right.
00:38:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. Well said. Number two, one thing that the general public should stop worrying about.
Focus on Exercise Over Methodology
00:38:16
Speaker
to pick what just left i How they should exercise, like just, just get out there and do it. Like, i'm um, um, yeah. Yeah. The specifics are it's in the margins. Just do it. Yeah.
00:38:30
Speaker
Cool. One thing the general public should care more about.
00:38:36
Speaker
Exercise. yeah It's stupid, right? but yeah But I think again, looking at the guidelines of which are self-report. So always the rosiest disposition still failing miserably on getting the 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous, which might not be as much as we needed as much as we thought, but definitely failing on the strength training guidelines where people, women, I've seen a survey recently from the UK. saying about five to 7% of women are legitimately doing strengthening exercise twice a week. And so that, so there's 93% of the population that needs more.
00:39:14
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. All right. What is, and this it doesn't, not your advice, but what is one piece of advice you wish you could delete from Instagram?
00:39:26
Speaker
It's tough, man. I know. Worrying about protein is, and I know that's odd for a protein guy to say, but I'm like, people are just obsessed with it. And, and. It really just needs to lay down a little bit and like, it's important, but it's not an unlock to so many of the things that I keep hearing people say it's an unlock for.
00:39:50
Speaker
That seems so bad after 30 years of doing it and then we get the right numbers and then I'm like, stop obsessing about it. But it, it literally has become an obsession. Yeah. Last one. What's one idea that keeps getting recycled despite weak evidence?
Weight Loss and Willpower Misconceptions
00:40:07
Speaker
Probably the idea that if you can't succeed at weight loss, that it's a failure of willpower. o And i say that against the backdrop of drugs now that are short-circuiting biology. it's not they're they're not They're not helping with willpower, but they're short-circuiting the biology. and And so we just need to drop the notion that if you can't lose weight and do it without drugs, that you're you're weak or you're less than.
00:40:37
Speaker
who Thank you. Awesome. We need to do this again. Yes, please. Yeah. We don't hate that at all. Are you kidding? No, this is, this is, this is like, I, I, I could talk with you folks. Like, I love your content. I really do. And I know people say that. And, and I think some people, and I'm like, to me, it's almost little bit embarrassing because I'm like, ah, okay. Great. It's not what I'm aiming for. I like engagement for sure, but I'm out there to try and give people the truth, right? Yeah. Right. We both have pretty big egos, so we're very pleased to care. We're not very humble, so. Not at all. It's all good. It's all good. Keep going. I'm good with the lack of humility, right? But you say real things, right? And there's sometimes some harsh, hard truths in there, which I'm okay with. But when you contacted me, it's always like, like, okay, first check out what they do and who they are and what they say. Cause don't want to get on something where I'm like, okay, so tell me about the peptide stack. So I'm like, I looked at yourself. I'm like, you're keeping it real. Right. So I appreciate that.
00:41:54
Speaker
Holy shit, Laurel. That was awesome. That was so awesome. Short and full of amazing information. Yes. And I'm not going lie. The fact that he likes us.
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah. i was like, oh my God. Yeah. I mean, the fact that he goes and like looked at our work, he likes our posts and reshares our posts sometimes too, which he's been doing for a while. I don't know what posts of ours originally got on his radar, but.
00:42:17
Speaker
But yeah, it's super cool to do this type of work that we do where I think of us, of course, as a physical therapist and a strength coach team, but we're also podcasters. And so we kind of live in this like recreational journalist slash recreational social commentators. And it's a community of us type people, but then we've got like hardcore scientists, like people. Dr. Stu Phillips, who is a professor and a scientist, and then Dr. Lauren Colenzo Semples, hardcore scientist, and like Dr. Jen Gunter. And I feel like this community online where like maybe we we don't really know each other in person or we don't really converse outside of like just the resharing and commenting and like supporting yourself on each other on social media. But it it gives me hope that when these evidence-based misinformation-busting people kind of come together online, that we can somehow make a difference against the like tidal wave of grift and misinformation out there and that we can help clear up some messes slash
00:43:27
Speaker
bring people into our sphere of influence and outside of the sphere of grift and misinformation and that together with all of our different things that we do and ways that we have of communicating can like make a difference. And I think it does i think it does take multiple different types of people with multiple different amounts of time available to create content, but then also different ways of creating content, different yeah ways of saying it to do that. I like to think of us as like being on kind of the same team, right? Not maybe at the same league, but the same team. Right. We we all play for the bulls, but Stu Phillips is Michael Jordan. it's I would say as well, for me at least, when we when we're sort of
00:44:08
Speaker
standing among giants for want of a better phrase. It's very validating to me to hear from him that he thinks what we're doing is good because we do get so much, I mean,
00:44:21
Speaker
I i've know that that's true on some level, but especially like we did a post recently that like brought a lot of the Menno trolls out and it can sometimes feel a little bit like, oh shit, are we right? Is this right? and right Well, no, i never I never wonder about whether we're right or if this is right. I know we're not perfect and we get things wrong. I think we're standing on the right side of yes ah history here. However,
00:44:49
Speaker
I get depressed that there are so many people who've been tricked yeah and fooled and misled and it's it's really hard to change people's minds. I could get better at it. I mean, i am working on it. I think I'm working on it. Anyway, I think that they, I simultaneously want them to change their mind, but they also piss me off because I'm like, right why don't, why don't you just suspend your disbelief for a second? Right. And listen to what we're saying. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's always hard because it's like, it's sort of the same way that I think about Trump voters. There's going to be people who are just not or dig their heels in and they're never going to change how they feel. There are people who are changing how they feel, but it's, it's hard to identify who that might be.
00:45:37
Speaker
And especially in the comments section of a social media post, it's basically impossible. But yeah, I mean, I do feel like we're on the right side for sure. It's just for me, very validating when like us to me, a superstar knows what we're doing and thinks what we're doing is good.
00:45:52
Speaker
So That that web was great. And so we're going to have a part two because he's a very generous person and that will be upcoming. But we hope you liked this episode and please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe. We've had a few.
00:46:07
Speaker
Can I just jump in about the reviews? Yeah. We've definitely had a few interesting negative reviews land. Did you. Recently? Yeah. Yeah. Well, like one of them. I don't see any them until you send them me. One of them was like obviously pro-MIDI.
00:46:23
Speaker
Another one has an interesting idea of what sexism is. But at any rate, if if you do like our work and you have wondered if your review means anything, I mean, we are definitely attracting more negative reviews now that we've created content that Rachel Replogle, people's feathers around their favorite venture backed capitalist corporation and their favorite you know. Rachel Replogle, Doctor who sells supplements or their favorite female physiology quote expert who still thinks that.
00:47:00
Speaker
hypertrophy can only happen with heavy weight. I mean, so listen, help us out if you can and get in there and actually be one of the positive reviews that we have because it, I just read one while you were talking that says, well, you're sexist.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah. fun Well, she gave us, love she gave us three stars, but oh not terribly sexist. I'm sure you didn't have enough time to read through her entire reason why we're, why we're sexist, which is i like, how many episodes fun how many episodes did you listen to? Right.
00:47:26
Speaker
before you wrote this and also it's a little bit like reverse racism you're like wow i think maybe you should read a few more books on sexism is but anyway so listen yes rate rate reviews yeah right so so complacency for things that you like right like don't be complacent like let us know that you that you like what we're doing i think we're much less complacent when there's something we hate or dislike right we're much more likely to jump in there and be like you're sexist and just being a human and and listen i'm fine with either one but you know
00:48:00
Speaker
Yeah. If you, if you feel motivated to review us, review us. If you, if you feel motivated slash, if you think we're doing good work and if you want to weigh in. Yeah. And also don't forget if you're interested in our course, lift for longevity, which is starting in September, make sure you're on our mailing list. One of the easiest ways to do that. If you're not already is to grab our free barbell mini course, which the link to that is in our show notes.
00:48:25
Speaker
All right. I'm looking forward to part two. Part two is Stu. We will. We will. Hang on. Come back in. Yeah. we Laurel just totally disengaged. i was like, we're not going back like that.
00:48:40
Speaker
We will see you in two weeks. See you in two weeks. glad we're not no longer trying to say that in unison. I know that was a mistake.