TMGP Ep 11 with coach Jake Remmert

oo another white boy with a podcast pronouns Jim bro another white boy with a podcast you want to see the video it went viral hi gains gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 11 I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming Jake RIT onto the show Jake has a BS honors in exercise science and is a certified strength and conditioning specialist he is currently a researcher lecturer and PhD candidate at Florida Atlantic University where he is working in the muscle physiology laboratory here his research focuses on optimizing program design to maximize hypertrophy and strength Jake is also a coach with data driven strength where he provides Educational Services and one-on-one coaching for clients with goals ranging from Elite powerlifting performance and competitive bodybuilding to recreational strength muscle growth and fat loss he is a competitor himself as well with nearly 10 years of training experience and multiple competitions under his belt in today's episode we can look forward to insights from Jake related to programming and using datadriven techniques to drive strength and hypertrophy gains given that brief glimpse into Jake's remarkable background let's jump right into the show we are as we said right before we ho on here we're bu busy lab stuff is busy um probably talk about some of that stuff here today but um overall man I'm very good and happy to be busy good that's awesome can you give me a brief introduction into yourself please and how you got into the world of uh powerlifting coaching and research yeah so um I guess I'll start a quick bio I guess would be sort of two main things uh one is I'm currently a PhD candidate here at Florida Atlanta University U my primary advisor is Dr Mike zordo who some of your listeners may be aware of he's uh done a lot of work in the space is one of the main uh contributors to the research review Mass very very great scientist great guy so I'm I'm very happy to be be able to learn from him but um yeah so that that's where a lot of my time is spent here in the lab doing research stuff and then most of that research focusing primarily primarily these days on hypertrophy but uh we've done some work on strength as well and trying to look at program design and how to really manipulate things to get the best possible you know strength and Hyper tree outcomes and then so that's kind of one hat that I wear and then the other hat is the sort of Coach content creator stuff with uh data driven strength where uh we coach really a huge range these days right it started out as a lot of powerlifters but now it's it's a lot of powerlifters and it's a lot of sort of um more General you know strength and body composition change stuff and it's also some bodybuilders now and uh so it's expanded which I love right I I love being able to have my hands in all of it and uh so that's super fun so that's uh another big big uh time commitment there is the coaching aspect and then you know trying to put some content out there in the internet to hopefully uh be helpful to some degree anyway and spread the knowledge I love to hear sure of those groups that you mentioned um would be your favorite from the powerlifting the bodybuilding the lifestyle honestly this is going to sound like a copout answer but I I love all of them pretty much the same because they're so different right like they're so uh and I say this to my clients too like it's it's fun to have different conversations with different people like the powerlifters there's like there's that like you you have to go out and take what you want to an extent right like there's a obviously Auto regulation you have to listen to your body we have to do all these things but there there's much more of that like I don't know Primal energy sometimes of like we trained for this we're prepared for this we're going to attempt this PR it seems realistic now we got to go for it right and that's really fun uh competition's really fun bodybuilding is different right it's it's a different energy it's it's more uh endurance you know how much can you really get in there and and feel these feelings and and still show up and do what you got to do still check your boxes um so that's really fun there's a lot of uh I find very like philosophical things wrapped up into bodybuilding especially the dieting aspect um and there's more nutrition stuff going on there too right and then at least usually I think powerlifters would do well to pay more attention to their nutrition but um anyway and then the the more lifestyle stuff is is super fun too right because then there're people who you can have conversations about other things that they're not quite as you know um what's the word I'm looking for it's not OP result at all costs for them right it's much more into the flow of the rest of their life and and I think that uh that's just how most people are right that's that's the reality for most people and that's awesome and it's fun to have those other kind conversations too so there's my cop out answer without picking an actual favorite that's a great answer it's so funny that you mentioned about the powerlifting and the diet I had um Ashley ho the world's strongest female equi bench on the show and uh her diet that was episode four her diet was uh whatever kids felt like eating yeah that's funny I mean that's probably what a lot of people have right but she's like 37.5 kilogram bench soar I can't even fathom yeah me neither me neither but anyway back back to you sorry I just thought that that was an interesting point you made about the P there can you tell us a little bit about your PhD research yeah so um I I'll I'll start kind of broad I guess and then if we want to get into more details then we can do that but broadly it's focusing on really it's focusing on training volume and there's a couple pieces with that right one piece is as a lab as a group this isn't just me as a group we are doing uh working on updating meta analysis of the impact of volume on hypertrophy and strength uh looking at that dose response relationship and which is interesting in a couple ways one is just because we've had more research come out in the last few years right that an update on that is probably uh you know very useful at this point the the one that sh andf it all did was back in 2017 right and it's 2024 now so we have some stuff especially some really high volume stuff that'll be interesting to wrap in there but there's also um you know different ways to analyze things so we can look at things you know um in in in terms of like how many sets are being done like the the F met analysis looked at sort of categorically breaking up volume so it was five or less or less than five sets five to nine sets and 10 plus uh what what we'll do is looking at more continuously to be able to get you know a little bit different look at that relationship so that'll be cool and there's a lot of little sub analyses that we that we'll do as well um so I'm really excited for that um so we'll be able to have that we'll be able to um also look at similar things similar questions similar relationships but rather than total weekly volume look at the procession volume I think that's you know a different Wrinkle in there too and uh something that I've been particularly interested in is like how do we really fine-tune a training session uh because you know if if each session is now maximized then we can stack all those up and um obviously that needs to be contextualized within the whole week of course too right you know if you maximize one day but it sabotages another day later in the week you know we got to consider that but um anyway so I'm really interested in that question so we'll look at all those things at a meta analysis level but then my dissertation study is really getting into that too of fine-tuning volume that that sort of idea and so what what I'm doing is using a within subjects design which just means you know for your listeners that that might not know they'll have one arm in this case do a certain protocol and the other arm will do a different protocol so with that you you effectively really increase your sample size because now we can decrease all of that like genetic variability between people diet related variability sleep related right it just everything tightens up a lot better so um so that'll that'll really help to get data that's that's uh you know a little bit more robust so that'll be nice um but what what we'll do is have one limb will always do a certain number of sets the other limb is doing a number of sets that can change session to session based on their Performance Based on how they feel so that Auto regul ated aspect of volume that you know the idea being sort of two things one being does listen to your body does having that auto regulation with sets specifically lead to more growth rather than just sort of always doing what a uh broad General recommendation might tell us to do so just that simply is auto regulation beneficial but also does that auto regulation lead us to sort of fine-tune a number of sets that are sort of individualized that person right um so I think that that that's very exciting to me to see you know what we find and and is it something that can change or inform how we program right for for different people um so I'm really looking forward to that and I guess the last little piece which I said I was starting Broad and I'm already talking for 15 minutes but the the the last piece of that is sort of along the way we are collecting a lot of other subjective indicators so this would be like every session we measure their or every set we get their pump right what they perceive their pump to be we get their soreness when they come into the session also the day after the session we get perceived recovery status every day we get their um session rpe so like how difficult they felt the session was all these things and we're going to be able to look at the relationship between those things and the actual growth that they get so with that my hope is that we get some data that helps us to sort of you know sift through all these things of like which things should we really listened to right like if pump is related to hypertrophy really strongly cool right that that do mean it's causing growth necessarily but it's at least something we should pay attention to um there's some relationship there but if it's not related at all then like let's not you know things don't need to be more complicated than they need to be right so uh I think that'll be cool too and and you know a lot of people especially in the bodybuilding space have been using these things pump and soreness and um subjective fatigue indicators to adjust set numbers and I've done that on myself I've done that with clients and it seems to work pretty well but there's just no research on it so I'm very much looking forward to like getting some of that research we'll see what we find maybe it's cool maybe it's maybe we find nothing you know who knows uh we'll find whatever we find but the the Hope anyway is that you know something there is interesting and and can help kind of guide us moving forward so I'll pause there I don't know if there's anything you want me to Rabbit Hole down anymore but but there we go no that's a that's a really really cool topic and like you mentioned I think you're going to have your hands full with the volume studies like like you said you can do all kinds of things in the volume space whether it's high volume low volume somewhere in between that's very very exciting and I hope that we get into some of that volume um data more uh in the show um so you mentioned that that's do a size so that to do hypertrophy specific your your um dissertation at least yeah um it which is funny right because like data driven strength is no the strength isn't the name and everyone s more about strength um I love strength research don't get me wrong I think it's awesome it's just that um the hypertrophy space to me has always kind of been the thing that just scratches that itch a little bit more I find it a little bit more interesting just there's just more stuff going on it feels like to me I don't know and they're well they're well correlated like the stronger you get it potentially the more hypertrophy also get and vice versa is that correct I think General yeah I think so to to be fair the research isn't perfectly clear on that right like there there are some things that uh would suggest that um there was actually a paper was this last year or the or it was either end of 2022 or sometime in 2023 um that I can't remember the weight author's name right now um I could find it and send it to you after the show but um it was interesting they they looked at this question right like does hyper does more hypertrophy lead to more strength and they found that it didn't and they did they had a really really good analysis and they used like a an unskilled strength movement so it was really just it's not a technique thing that's changing the strength it's just the you know and they found that you know really no benefit of Greater muscle size like that's interesting um but then like so much practical experience is just yeah man you know if you if you get bigger you just always seem to get stronger you know so I have a hard time um I have a hard time not leaning that way that getting bigger is going to be help but uh at least in terms of the research you know we'll see what happens years to come you know I get you I I I I agree with you on that one because um I don't think anyone skinny is deadlifting 300 kilograms I just don't like I think quite a lot of quite a lot of muscle to to deadlift like incredible numbers like that yeah it usually helps normally yeah it do allowing exist you know I mean people just with crazy or whatever but by and large if we're making a general recommendation for people like yeah we should probably try to get a little bit bigger you know for sure for sure get those numbers up but then you got the powerlifting categories and stuff so it all affects l n yeah so you got to think about that right if especially if you're at the really high level is it worth gaining more muscle like are you actually getting more competitive within your weight class or is that now going to make you struggle in the higher weight class so it's you know definitely considerations for those really high level people for sure and in terms of the volume dose is that um a relationship vers your reps in reserve I saw you about an article on that is that still to do with your research now or is that a past um unrelated so uh ask that again I want to make sure I'm understanding your question right I saw that you have an article on the volume uh versus R dose relationship oh yeah I in yes so the it's the the biggest thing with that whole topic uh the answer is we don't know right that that is the answer no and no one knows uh because there's just no re on really yet right yeah yet exactly uh we we have a study in our lab that is done we're in the analysis stage now that um is just one study so it's not going to tell us a whole lot but hope can start to get some glimpses and then as as more studies are done that'll be helpful um but we we have basically the you know the question is right like how do those two play together uh because we know it seems like more volume generally leads to more growth at least on average uh we had our met analysis from when did that initially come out sometime last year I think uh that was led by Zach Robinson in our lab that um has sense we have sort of uh it was pre-printed we have sort of a version two that's now been pre-printed again uh so people can it's at the same length people can can check that out if you just get on Google Scholar or just Google you know Zack Robinson proximity to failure meta analysis or something like that it'll pop up um but basically that was showing dose response there as well right the closer you get to failure the more I biry we tend to get question there of course both of those things are more fatigue right more volume tends to be more fatiguing closer to failure tends to be more fatiguing so we can't probably can't maximize both at the same time always right right so now we have to decide which one do we prioritize more do I do less volume if it means I can take everything really close to failure or should I back away from failure so I can do more volume like what's the deal and um there's no correct answer to that yet there's no clean answer um my my two cents currently is is essentially that we have more direct search comparing different volumes um so I I have more confidence in that relationship right of that dose responsive volume and growth compared to the proximity to failure one because a lot if people read the paper um a lot of those studies had to be estimated the r that they were training with right and we feel very confident in how it was estimated but nonetheless I'm sure there's errors in there right there's going to be errors anytime something that like that is done so um there there just isn't a whole lot of studies that are like failure versus this exact R things like that so limitations with that one which makes me be like I think it's a thing but I'm less confident there compared to the volume so for for me you know I kind of think about let's maybe prioritize volume a little bit more for now at least let's try to on average maybe get a little bit closer to failure but only so much as it doesn't create so much fatigue that it's now sabotaging how much volume we can do I don't think that's super worth it um so as an example I've done this with a handful of clients now that are just focused on hypertrophy I think if someone has strength goals as well that complicates things a little bit because now we have more um more reason to be cautious of fatigue I don't want to sabotage our performance on those really heavy squat days or whatever for example but if someone's just focused on muscle growth what I've tried to do a couple times and and I've had pretty good success with so far is someone's doing a certain amount of volume and they're probably on average maybe they're training with two reps in reserve or something right just on average so then I pulled their volume back just a little bit maybe 10% 15% whatever just a little bit of breathing room on average got that stuff a little closer to failure maybe one R maybe zero R some stuff to failure right um let's see how that feels and what it seems like at least the people that I've worked with and tried this with and um there's a little bit of evidence for this as well not much very little bit a suggestion I guess you can call it is that initially going closer to failure is more fatiguing but when you do it for a few weeks you kind of adapt and it's not as fatiguing anymore um I've certainly experienced this right like it's just at first it it's like wow I feel like I got hit by a truck but then after a few weeks like I'm chilling right it's not that big a deal um at least for most like upper body calves right um things like that but um so anyway so I tried this I pull volume back a little bit get things closer to failure on average let that kind of settle and see do they feel fine now right they're not fatigued let me try to add that volume back in just a little bit at a time and can we get it back to where it was and in my experience you know I've been able to get things back to pretty much where they were and um maybe a slightly less but pretty much where it was which to me feels like sort of a a Best of Both Worlds right like I'm still trying to get as much of I can of of each thing but um still sort of my guiding principle at least as of right now is that if that fatigue from going closer to failure starts to sabotage how much volume I can do probably not worth it I'm going to pull a little bit further away from failure on average again right you can still have some stuff that's a failure whatever but um yeah that's how I've kind of rolled with it um and and just to to put a bow on that to to be clear when I mentioned like there's a tiny bit of evidence that that fatigue from going to failure seems to dissipate a little bit over time the latest study from Martin refo who it was a great study looking at failure versus 2 R on average uh just came out super recently um they had on one of the two exercis they had leg press and leg extension and I can't remember off the top of my head which one it was but it was one of the exercises that the rep drop off over time was less pronounced right in in while going to failure um over time right so it sort of like you are or rep drop off in a session was less pronounced over time so it's like as the weeks went on that fatigue from going to failure like at first they would just tank and then they kind of were able to maintain a bit better over time um and which sort of mirrors a lot of my practical experience so uh but the other exercise didn't do that they continued to tank from from the fatigue so um who knows but we'll see as we get more and more research over the next several years I think that's a topic that a lot of people are interested in so we'll see what happens absolutely and in terms of that R is the general recommendation still 0 to four reps in reserve I yeah I think that's super reasonable you know I I I might tend to say may this is super annoying like nitpicky whatever but um I might tend to go like zero to three or something personally if I had to put a number on it uh just because it it does kind of seem like I was just saying it does kind of seem like the closer we get to failure is probably a little bit better limitations to that analysis 100% but um but nonetheless I do think there's something there um um I do think that the fatigue from being closer to failure probably dissipates a bit over time for most people so uh with that I'm like for again for hypertrophy I think we can be a little bit closer on average and be fine especially if we're talking about doing you know things for your arms things that are you know higher reps on average and stuff like that uh again if you have strength goals at the same time I think that changes things because we have to be careful with that fatigue but with with hypertrophy at least that's where I tend to settle somewhere in that zero to three-ish range um on average at least right there's still some stuff you know usually if somebody's doing sets at eight on rdls right like we can stay further from failure it's fine they're going to feel super hard no matter what we do so like things like that especially if they cause a lot of soreness and all that I'll I'll deal more conservative but the compound movey yeah especially for things like rdl's though I've I found at least that you know um leg presss and hack squats Smith machine squats or things like that I haven't had as many issues with people getting really consistently really sore um I think those hip hinges dude like they just screw up your hamstrings you know but um but I think as a general principle I do think that's probably true right like the more uh the more it's like a compound lift with a high technique component with uh more muscle groups larger muscle groups lower rep ranges heavier loads like the more we're on that side of stuff probably the further from failure we can we can be and then vice versa I think it's probably a pretty good rule with them and in terms of going past failure do you see any benefit like um maybe cheat reps or drop sets mys any of that on is it still there's just no data to to say that it's good or bad or what's your take it's tough man um I I think that as far as I'm aware that it's not necessarily bad better than you know doing another thing like to True like true failure is gnarly you know like like you really take a leg press to failure it's crazy but um the so I don't think as far as I'm aware it's not necessarily better but it's also not worse so I'm like cool that's just another tool we can use it's fun to do that stuff right I love that stuff there's you know and uh so I I think that's definitely something that we can keep in that toolbox to keep enjoyment and just you know engagement with the program and consistency and all those things I think that's huge I also think doing those things like the set's just so hard right that that in itself I think can be beneficial to help people like realize how hard they can push themselves and then um you know even if we're trying to just go to to normal failure or if we're going to one r or something they can probably push harder than they thought you know so having some experience there I think can helpful and then um I think the last piece is you know there's something that I've been doing quite a bit of and I think sort of is right in line with those examples that you gave would be using lengthen partials yeah as an intensity technique um you certainly don't have to use it as an you know like Milo who Milo wolf who whose PhD was sort of what kick this whole thing off right um he on the episode two oh sweet yeah yeah he's great um and he's talked a lot about how like it's not really an intensity technique right this is just the range of motion that we think it will lead to the best growth and I think that's super valid um I personally have tried using it as an intensity technique and I just like it right I think it helps to accomplishes similar things to you know myor reps or uh things like that where the set's just super hard and we get those things but it also is like you know especially for lat pull downs and rows and things that they're they're so hard right at that contraction but not that hard up here we can just squeeze more out of that same set you know um so I've liked that a lot clients have really liked it you know they yeah feel like you're actually getting more yeah it's crazy right and and it's everyone's like man the pumps are insane and it's just fun right uh who knows if it's actually better or not which and funny enough um Milo's met analysis would suggest that it's you know maybe not better um but the uh I don't I don't know I think that I still regardless of of what the metaanalysis showed I still have a difficult time um wrapping my head around that a strategy like that where we are doing a full range of motion with some length and stuff at the end to kind of hit that failure point at multiple different muscle lengths I have a really hard time seeing that not being the best um but we don't have research on it right so it's one of those things that we'll have to wait and see but um I really like that one I really like that one yeah that I I like it too he mentioned that you can expect to get between five and um 10% more growth than doing full range motion though when he was on marious chain since then it's been a minute since I read that uh since I read that paper so I couldn't tell you for sure but um I mean he pays super close attention to that area know he also did a thing what mentioned myos sets and he says it's just not like this no data to support it so he's not a fan of of the Mya sets what would you say yeah would you say the lens and partials are your favorite kind of intensity technique I know Jeff n said they were one of his favorites they're probably at least right now there probably my favorite um I I like the myor stuff though personally you know and I think that um the wanting to wait for more data is totally valid 100% uh I'm my personal opinion is that if even in the absence of data if there's enough logic and reason behind something I feel very confident that it's not you know thebly worst yeah you know if if somebody enjoys it and it just helps them you know uh lock into the program a little bit more and and just have more fun and they're more consistent they keep showing up they keep pushing themselves that sounds like a win to me you know um and it's just it breaks up the monotony bodybuilding can be so monotonous dude just if we're doing everything by the book it's like you know this is it's it's great but it's it's just a lot of the same stuff so um especially for people who only have that they don't care about strength at all I find that really nice to be able to thread in those other little things and and uh just keep that enjoyment up you know absolutely I totally totally agree um you had a really really cool um thread or I guess Carol you'd call it on uh Instagram about programming considerations do you mind if we just jump through them I've got them been here if you want me to read them back in case you might have forgotten about them but was your sure um they were really cool they were like does the muscle act as the prime mover does the M muscle get trained through a full wrong does the muscle get loaded in a stret position biomechanical conations different rep ranes better suit it's different exercises stimulus fatigue ratio that kind of thing uh overload potential and time efficiency what are your thoughts on on all of those that they're really cool um programming considerations and and I think that they're super important they such a nice place that you that you've done there thanks dude thank you um yeah I I think and and I should say this on the front end too just to be clear like I don't think all that stuff is necessary to grow right like we can still grow doing the most basic stuff it's just you know when we start talking about can I grow as much as I possibly can and as people get more advanced I think that starts to matter even more and so then we start to you know talk about some of these more little tiny Nuance things things that can make maybe that tiny bit of difference but then if we stack multiple of them on top of each other maybe we're it might be the difference between growing and not growing right for somebody who's super Advanced yeah but um but yeah I think that a lot of it is also common sense of you know you you just go try something and see kind of how you know for example like the different rep ranges for different things uh I so funny enough I have a I teach a class here as part of my uh PhD and the class is just all about lifting right I've sort of made it all about it's I think it's an awesome class personally UMass yeah dude I'm I'm so excited because it's the the point was the point of the class is to discuss you know taking a lot of the physiology that they've learned in previous classes Anatomy physiology how do I apply that now to programming right how do I you know applications of training physiology that's what it's called very cool and um so I was like that's the that's the guideline sweet we're going to talk about lifting talk about strength and hypertrophy and um and that's literally one of the slides in one of the presentations is is about this and I show like for leg training for or quad training um common exercises we got you know leg press we got or we got squat we got leg press we got leg extension and then just thinking about different rep ranges for these things and do they make sense so like you know less than 10 reps does that make sense for squat absolutely right it makes a lot of sense 10 to 15 reps does that make sense yeah it starts to get tricky with the card aspect but you could do it we're doing High really high W stuff does that make sense I feel much less comfortable with that right like the cardio it gets crazy we start to like now we probably do need to get really close to failure to maximize the set is that really safe on a squat maybe if you have good spotters and you have really stable technique but if someone's not as experienced maybe something funky happens or whatever right so like squatting I I really like those relatively lower rep ranges a leg press we can kind of do all of them right heavy leg press feels pretty good we can do moderate stuff the cardio starts to get challenging but it's not as technique dependent as a squat is you know if we hit failure that's okay we're not going to fall uh with a barbell on our back and then like a leg extension sort of the opposite of the squat right High Reps are great moderate stuff can be great but really high or really high lows really low reps people tend to get some knee pain you know so it's just just you know I think there they're things that when you've been Lifting for a long time like you just sort of inherently start to do these things even if you don't think about it just you notice something makes your knee feel funny so you don't do it anymore you know um and I think that post was trying to like take a lot of those things that a lot of us do just inherently or sort of on Instinct and like just write them down basically right to have sort of a an idea with that and and yeah yeah some just you know I'm not saying that this is the only right thing people might disagree with me on those sorts of things but and that's fine but that's at least how I tend to think about stuff anyway is sort of using those rough guidelines is you know and then you can deviate from them for sure right maybe there's a certain you know you're working with a certain person who has whatever circumstance or they have they're limited on equipment or they're what injury history all these sorts of things and then we start to you know Break The Rules a little bit but it fits that person and cool you know absolutely it's got to be uh person specific 100% everything does yeah and it's crazy but you got so many top guys just giving cookie kind of programs same for 10 to few thousand people and it's like I'm sure probably not even the worst program but it's definitely not not optimal for you for sure you know as as long as everyone is aware that that's the case cool right if they're like yeah that that start be unfortunate but if everyone knows what they're signing up for then sweet but um you know I don't think they would I don't think a lot of people would up if they thought it wasn't really good but they get tricked because I see someone influential like oh 100,000 followers must be must be good and look how they look as well um oh for yeah a big thing yeah dude don't even get me started on uh my my girlfriend and I talk about this all the time just how um with how heavily driven the whole industry is by social media yeah it's like you know depending on how somebody looks it it just people make such an immediate snap judgment on the qual show what they're saying or or or what they're doing or is maybe it's maybe they are saying amazing information and it's all great but like people n yeah may but people will just nonetheless assume that if I do that I'll look like you for sure like that like no man you know um so it's I've actually had I think several posts you know try to be kind of uh talk about it at least every once in a while about like genetics matter man and like it's something none of us want to talk about we don't want to think about it and I think it's very unhelpful to think about like there's literally research on you know your your expectations can change your physiology right like it can literally change your your results um to an extent uh but like so I don't think we should ever focus on our genetics but we should be aware people are different and like if I do your program I'm not going to look like you I'm going to look like Me Maybe I look like me but a little more jacked or something right or or whatever and it's just so many people just and I was the same way for so long you know like that's how all of us get started we find people on Instagram who look great and we follow what they're doing and then we start to learn and expand and you know so uh so yeah anyway tangent aside that's uh it's definitely it's a it's a wild west out here man it is absolutely um just so that on a note with the squads guys always use SE depins uh just just it's definely worthwhile and then I just want let you know and I'll probably address this again later I really appreciate your your honesty and your caution about about everything basically and not being and openly not being 100% certain about anything because you can't really be even if the data now shows this like yeah that's cool but it might change and uh really appreciate how honest you are about it and it's disappointing that there's not um that much honesty on the internet like like yourself thanks I appreciate it I appreciate it I mean that's why they have 200k followers and I don't right so we gonna get there man I definitely hope you're gonna get there it's gonna BL off don't worry don't worry oh for sure yeah but thank you for saying that man it's uh credit where it's due I've had some very good people around me to help you know Mentor me and and those sorts of things so um it's especially when you get into the talking about research stuff like as you're saying you know even if something seems really well studied now like there's a whole discussion now about you know we have all these studies on volume right and all these studies on on everything really with what's leading to more hypert volume rest times frequency Etc and there um Sam Buckner has made a really um he he's been sort of at the Forefront of discussing this and um there's been a lot of good discussions lately about you know the the how soon they take that post measurement compared to the training session that probably matters quite a bit you know because we might be some swelling that's still there and um like among others yeah so there there's there's stuff like that where I'm I don't think this will be the case uh I don't I personally don't think that the swelling is such a huge it probably matters but I don't think it's going to completely you know overshadow all the growth that we're seeing but you know let's say it did right that means all these volume studies all these everything studies don't we have no idea in the B like right so it's it's it's tough you know because there's always something like that that could happen yeah um or we find there's a new measurement technique or a new device that can measure this thing way better or we find out we've been tracking the wrong hormone or the or the wrong biomarker and um you know like any of that stuff can happen at any time and I just I really don't want to be the dude who gets made into a meme so because there's a lot of great memes out there and I just you know I don't I don't want to be that guy so maybe that's 200k though yeah that's true be so I I'm aware of the time and I know we're having such a good times going so quickly let's just before jumping into the papers um let's just quickly uh talk on the rate of weight gain during hypertrophy phases um I see your post mentions about .5% uh .2 5% to .5% and then under .25% for novice intermediate and advanced respectively just quickly touch on that and then also losing body fat while maintaining muscle strength training with intend high protein soate to Fat Loss just quickly and then we'll get into the paper yeah um so the the the way game one um that comes primarily from a paper I think it was 2019 from Iraqi at all that um Juma Iraqi he he at least used to have a really good podcast I don't know if he's still doing it or not but it used to be really cool at least I'm sure it's out there on YouTube or something somewhere but uh but shout out to him because he he was definitely a cool resource for me uh when I was initially starting this whole school thing but um it was a it was a great paper and they looked at all the the relevant research which isn't much to be very clear there's not a whole lot but it's kind of seeming like these are reasonable ranges right of um on the top end kind of being on that half a percent of body mass per week which you know I I guess to to put a number on it right like um if somebody weighs 100 kilos right 1% would be one kilo a week so half per half a kilo a week that's still pretty fast right you know half kilo a week is like you know you're you're pushing it um so and that obviously scales with with body mass right um and I think it would make sense for that to scale with how advanced you are as a as a trainee that the more longer you've been training probably going to gain less muscle as we go so try to gain a little bit more slowly for the most part some caveats to that that I that I always like to try to point out um is that the more advanced we are yes we're growing less muscle right but I can certainly see an argument that we don't want to try to go too too slow because now I don't think is trying that but I get you yeah well I think at least I've seen a couple people at least right we try to go so slow to like Matt not get around gain the muscle yeah and avoid the fat gain and I'm like dude at that point it's so hard to gain muscle uh I would kind of rather you know you don't have to fast but maybe yeah just maybe be a little bit above that minimum range or something to just ensure you're grow as much muscle as you can because the the fat the fat loss in comparison is such an easier process to gain muscle so yeah so that's that's my two cents on that anyway and also if you're going too slow it's really hard to track like now we're trying to track a gain of .08 kilos per week or something like that's you know that's tough um with fluctuations and everything so anyway so that's where that post came from and and um you know trying to take that paper as the as the guide post and then layer in some of my experience and some of my two cents on on those things anyway um so there was that and then the the other piece was the um losing weight while while getting stronger right was the other piece um so yes losing fat especially um which is the key that's that's well one of the keys is to not lose weight too quickly right because now we're going to be higher risk of muscle loss uh too quickly being for the most part around 1% of body mass probably about as fast as we want to go for the most part per week um that yeah oh yeah for sure um which is that's from the Roberts 2020 uh paper that they found that roughly % as a as a top end um that you know I don't see why that would need to scale with how advanced you are as as a trainee uh but certainly in my experience people who have never dieted before we probably don't want to go too fast because it just feels really difficult for them right and they might fall off and whatever so um I would try to get a few successful diets under your belt they a little easier before you try to do something extreme but um and not that you know 1% isn't super extreme but it's still like like you said it's pretty fast so uh so that's one piece is not trying to lose weight too quickly um not trying to be too lean for too long I think is another piece some people um especially the highest levels in powerlifting we get people trying to like really really thread the needle with those weight classes you know and uh and that can be great people get super successful with that um but at the same time if we're too lean for too long and we're doing you know so much of this stuff um number one we're probably hampering our chances of muscle growth if we're trying to stay shredded all the time but uh also number two right just the leaner we are it seems like probably the more likely we are to be playing with fire with muscle loss if we're trying to lose weight while we're already like bodybuilders right you're prepping we're playing with fire by the end you're probably going to lose a little bit but um so that's piece number two and then the other big thing like you said was that training with intent and I always try to tell people like train the exact same way as if you had everything at your disposal to max out muscle game right have that exact same intensity the same drive the same Focus all those things because now they're especially important right we're we're kind of playing in this overall catabolic environment that's not super conducive to to muscle growth right so we almost um if we can combat that as much as we can with what weapons we still have at our disposal I think that's very worth doing and uh seems to work pretty uh pretty well and I guess one last thing that I'll that I'll kind of toss in there on the top that I think is also seems to be helpful based on on my experience is if we can keep um heavy exposures quote unquote make sure we still have that in there meaning don't go too long without touching like a pretty heavy weight uh what I mean by that is maybe like you know um a single at rp7 or something like that right um or maybe a double or triple or something that's you know reasonably heavy it doesn't have to be a 1 RM doesn't have to be super heavy super fatiguing but just something that's in that realm to make sure that we are keeping that stimulus there seems to be helpful I don't know how to explain that on a physiological level but it just seems to seems to generally work a little bit better than getting too far away from it but um yeah that's what I think usually works pretty good that what you mentioned there about the um relatively High um difficulty like the one one R ma or not necessarily One MA but like seven RP or so um that I think I saw that in like the minimum dose um yeah study by Dr pack I think he's also I haven't released his episode yet but he's also gonna be on he's great he is also great you got me in here with those guys that's cool BR I've seen your you've got photos with them already you know them oh least let's saw Dr Wolf and in them s your photos your research these are the people that I want on the show and the people doing the doing the research and I think volume is uh pretty good uh the muscle growth podcast I think it's going to be tie in pretty well I can't wait to see your your fining anything when are you going to finish your research by the way um so the updated meta analysis that I mentioned should hopefully our goal we're in the writing process now so our goal is to be able to get that out [Music] sometime I don't know mid 2024 would be pretty sweet like in the summer summer fall um that's that would be amazing uh we'll see if that happens that that that's that's the goal but we'll see um in terms of my dissertation that's going to be longer for sure um I'll probably roll a data collection until you know probably like this time next year okay and then I'll need some time obviously to analyze and you know write up the paper and all that stuff but yeah what I what I would love uh and who knows if this is realistic but what I would love is to get the meta analysis out summer fall this year and then get my dissertation stuff out you know a year after that um maybe that's ambitious but we'll find out we're going to try our best well we'll have to get you back on the podcast once you release that then publish it that so let sorry last thing and I don't want to carry on with this because we're about to get into the papers but just it's might be a really stupid question um but in terms of the um the body fat or the rate of loss and the rate of gain the based on body like on the percentage is that an updated percentage every week or the original like at the start of the Dust is we go okay yeah it's not going to change that much right yeah it's it's not going to change that much week to week but you know if if someone lost 10 kilos or something right it's a meaning yeah for sure that's a really good uh the something is G really right or really wrong or 10 gilo right okay cool let's hop into the papers to hear Jake talk about the research papers that he's been a part of you're going to have to tune in next time for part two on the muscle growth podcast goodbye gains gurus thank you for listening and see you on the next episode of tmgp