TMGP Ep 15 with Researcher, Lecturer, and Fitness Buff Max Coleman p2

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 Gaines gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 15 I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming Max Coleman onto the show for part two of his two-part series Max Coleman a Leman college graduate and lecturer is a passionate researcher who delves into how training variables affect muscle hypertrophy his love for science muscles and cooking is evident in his work making him a valuable Scientific Advisor at bolw science Max Coleman's research at Leman college is not just about understanding muscle growth but also about optimizing it through practical strategies his work explores the mechanism Ms of muscle hypertrophy the impact of different training variables and the role of Nutrition By focusing on topics such as periodization training volume and Recovery Coleman's findings provide actionable insights for individuals athletes and fitness enthusiasts striving to achieve their muscle growth goals Max Coleman has been featured in various podcasts and videos discussing topics related to muscle hypertrophy and resistance training research these podcasts delve into the science behind muscle building training techniques and research findings in the field of resistance training additionally Max Coleman collaborates with Professor Brad sheld a renowned figure in exercise science on studies focusing on muscular adaptations and maximizing muscle hypertrophy in today's episode we can look forward to insights from Max related to his research studies and vast knowledge using science to drive muscle hypertrophy gains Max boasts one of the highest research gate paper read counts that I have ever seen so you can rest assured that he knows a thing or two about muscles given that brief glimpse into Max's remarkable background let's jump right into the show Absolutely that makes perfect sense and just to Circle back to the uh spectrum of rep ranges you mentioned uh maybe it's best to use a wide variety of rep ranges is that range I think I saw professor shanfeld said something about 5 to 50 is that still is that still five to 30 is very uh 5 to 30 is the very often Rec very often recommended range uh but the the range is actually bigger than people think I mean we've seen studies demonstrating large amounts of muscle growth from sets of three uh we've seen studies showing large amounts of muscle growth from sets of 100 so like oh wow there's yeah yeah so the the range is much bigger than people often give it credit for I think 5 to 30 is a really good pragmatic range sure um just because like man doing a set even doing a set for 30 like that's a pretty tough set and most people are cutting off those sets not because they're actually getting super close to failure but because the muscle just [ __ ] hurts like it's super painful to do a set of 30 and so you're like oh [ __ ] [ __ ] stop that's usually why you stop doing those as opposed to like your muscle literally cannot contract anymore my general takeaway with respect to rep ranges is that the majority of what you do should probably be in that like as cliche as it is to say bodybuilding range of like 8 to 12 like the majority of the work I do is anywhere between like 8 and 15 or something like that that's like where I spend most of my time and then I'll sprinkle in some work in the like 20 to 20 range and then a little bit of work in the like five to six range as well but like I said the majority of of my my workouts are in the like 8 to 15 rep range okay so so you would suggest keeping it in that typical body bilder range but also going up to 2530 for maybe uh isometric or not isometric for isolation exercises would be a good good way to do it and then maybe a little bit 5 to six range for maybe the bigger compound movements yeah and to be honest like I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't classify it that way um there are certain exercises that like man I don't really use the terms comp this is so semantic and this is just me being a pedantic [ __ ] because this is my job but like I wouldn't ever even say like a compound or isolation movement just because those terms are like they're conflated when you actually start so like for instance like look at a stiff leged deadlift yeah what is that like is that a compound or an isolation movement I mean there's only one joint moving I'd say it's compound though but yes I get you so so exactly like no one's calling a stiff-legged deadlift a a an isolation movement even though what it means to be an isolation movement is one joint moving uh when in reality like but that's not no you know what I mean so like for instance it wouldn't be like a but yes just for like me not being an [ __ ] essentially yes I would generally perform most of my compounds in the like five to six range and then more of those if I'm doing something in the 20 to 30 rep range it's probably going to be an isolation movement okay no brilliant and and I I like that I like your advice and definitely be an [ __ ] you need to need to people need to know um this is already going to be an explicit episode definitely from yeah yeah also yeah I apologize but I have no fil that's that's perfect um we we have settings for reason and uh this one will be set to explicit brilliant okay you'll be you'll be joining uh Dr M wolf as well as um Dr pack you the three of you are all all explicit so there we go um let's go move on to your paper on sorry if I butcher it but myo electric activity during electromagnetic resistance alone and in combination with variable resistance or Ecentric overload is that is that e is that EMG or ECG or is that is that what that is EMG EMG EMG um ECG would be for the heart or E depending on what part of the world you're from okay um I think EKG is the German and CG is the non-german I don't know I don't know it doesn't matter um yes that's electromyography so it's just the EMG of the biceps muscles and the front delt actually uh during uh Ecentric overload or variable resistance or just uh dumbbell bicep curls that study is not really it's it's great it's a great study but it's just like there's not a whole lot to take away from it because EMG is doesn't really tell us much in general and we also didn't see very large differences in EMG activity across the muscles from different exercises so I wouldn't I wouldn't say there there's a whole lot to gloss over there there's not a whole lot to really discuss with respect to that study okay but just on on the point of the EM EMG right just on that point I see a lot of influencers um like Ryan kist I'm not sure if I'm saying his name right I know Jeremy uh not e you said there better way to say it um Jeremy EA I think is pronounce it Jeremy ETA um they they all have lots of videos on uh EMG studies and then basically based on those studies that they did they say therefore this is the best um exercise to do would you would you not agree with that or would you say that there is some substance to that or would you say that emgs are not a great way to pick the best exercise for muscle growth anymore EMG is it not in any way a good way of going about choosing an exercise for muscle growth it is not at all EMG shows higher activations and amplitudes at shorter muscle lengths which we know is probably not good for muscle growth uh plus a bunch of other studies where you'll see higher EMG activity at certain muscles for certain exercises uh but then you have another study showing that they one with lower amplitudes actually grew the muscle more or there's no difference at all like for instance my dear friend Danny Boy Plotkin demoney Plotkin uh he just he his glute study where he was uh examining the EMG amplitudes of the glutes during the uh hip thrust and the squat showed differences but no differences in eng glute growth so like yeah I mean just there's not like using EMG to predict which exercis is are going to be better for muscle growth is a Fool's errand and but why why are science-based athletes and fitness influences doing like making these videos in is it just easy you can the I think it sounds scientific like I I know Jeremy like did it for a long time and I think he stopped doing so like I know Jeff Nipper did for a long time and stopped doing so um but like I I think that it just one you might not know any better like it sounds it's I mean activation why wouldn't that mean you know stimulation andow right um but it just doesn't seem to comport with the the the best evidence that we do have with respect to muscle growth so yeah if you see an influencer saying that like you should choose the ex because there was higher EMG activity just think again oh yeah take that take that with a grand OFA for sure I get you okay no well that's that's super that's super interesting that might not be have been from your paper but thank you for that little uh of course TI but um alter okay this is a cool one I think I think you'll probably like this one uh I'm sure I hope you like all of them I'm sure you probably didn't but that's pretend like you did um alterations in measures of body composition neuromuscular performance hormonal levels uh physiological adaptations and psychometric outcomes during preparation for physique competition oh yeah yeah so this was the case series that we did uh looking at individuals it was a series of case studies that we took looking at bodybuilders getting ready for competition um there you go um not a whole lot to take from there but basically that yeah like individuals uh the one really interesting thing that we did see is that male bodybuilders did lose substantial amounts of lean tissue in preparation for bodybuilding competitions but the female athletes that we followed or at least that we that were in those case studies uh did not lose any muscle mass or lean tissue in preparation for competition which is really interesting but again that's like a case Series so not necessarily uh something that we can take a lot of takeaways from with respect to how we go about training why do you think that there was such profound differences between male and female it might have something to do with out of osity so like females for competition just generally get down to like I believe it's like 10ish 10 to 12% body fat and males generally get down to like 3 to 5% body fat for competition and there might be something about getting down to such low levels of body fat that you necessitate uh the use of or you necessitate muscle loss essentially by getting so lean um but that's just a theory like we can't be absolutely confident as to why uh males were losing muscle but f weren't in that I think I think what your um guess or hypothesis makes perfect sense um so you reckon that Ronnie Coleman I think uh please forgive me if I'm wrong here but I think it was maybe Ronnie Coleman who said that he was negative .2% body he said he was 3% body and was like you were less than 0% B like as if he'd never heard someone use a decimal before um but no I one I'm skeptical that Ronnie was 0.3% body I don't think so yeah so like uh but but you know Ron and Coleman might have lost muscle tissue getting very close to competition it's is hard to say uh with respect to the use of anabolics and how those might impact muscle loss or muscle growth during periods of competition sure but can you read like not not that he's a realistic guy but um he's just one of those insanee athletes but surely is there not like a lower limit before you kind of I guess die in terms of your fat like you have to have isn't 2% the minimum am that you can have yeah so there are like fatal like there are limits of body fat where if you go below that like yes it can be fatal obviously you require fat for energy production within the human body so like if you go below a certain level of body fat it absolutely poses some serious danger uh and we see that like in the literature right like uh there are certain activi or it's not certain activities but certain things you just see very largely perturbed uh when you uh uh experience red s or relative energy deficiency syndrome right uh they're like your like for instance females will lose like they'll experience Amara where they lose their menstrual cycle uh as a result of low energy availability uh and if you sustain that for very long periods of time it can pose some serious uh Health detriment to like lower bone mineral density as well as a bunch of other issues as well so um bodybuilding is not the safest way of going about living life obviously and and individuals who compete in bodybuilding will be the first people to tell you that obviously that if you want to be healthy don't compete is a is a very common phrase in all not just bodybuilding uh but when you're doing something for athletic competition sometimes you have to make sacrifices to your health now it's important to point out that these sacrifices that you're making to your health uh they're transient uh and it's unlikely that they're going to leave very longlasting effects just being super lean for um a few weeks or months in preparation for a bodybuilding competition uh but if you were to sustain that for very long periods of times that's when it can be uh some serious issues like with individuals with anorexia nervosa there's obviously issues associated with that with respect to Health and Longevity absolutely no you make a fantastic Point especially with regards to it probably not being like that bad for your longevity in the long run like we look at Arnold he probably it probably wouldn't be good to be his size and what everything forever but like like like you mentioned it's probably hopefully transient and you can get back to regular body fat percentage and still have a good life after you know having a good life while you're in prep kind of thing yeah well there's some evidence to suggest that like the fluctuations in body weight going from heavy to light to heavy to light uh May in of itself have some sort of negative Health consequences it's hard to say if those uh fluctuations within a much more narrow range cuz I think that the evidence we have is on obese individuals um and so it's it's not we can't confidently say that that would that same thing would occur um in individuals that do like bodybuilding where they're going from uh like normal body fat levels to extremely low body fat levels uh but there's at least some reason to believe where that the that that might pose some health issues absolutely and I think so the next one is is probably something that we must just really really quickly touch on cuz it's probably just for the Nerds like yourself and me I saw you have an impressive 29,000 reads on Research gate or so wow completely completely think do that until well well well done on that so that means you research pretty Pro pretty thoroughly um but anyway um the next one is the Smart LD tool that dude all I'll say about that is that we could have called that the smart LSD tool and we watched the opportunity to do so the um it's the yeah yeah we'll see we'll see it's not it's not too late yet but basically that's a tool that we used for assessing the quality of uh resistance training studies uh so the whole purpose of that is to use uh that we would like for that to become the standard that people use when writing meta analyses for uh resistance training studies um but there's a lot of work to be done that's just a it's not really a study in of itself it's on Research gate but it's uh it's not a study in of itself itself it's it's more of a tool a concept that we're currently working on that hopefully will eventually become the standard tool that people use for assessing the quality of studies when using when writing meta analyses in uh resistance training protocols that is far away the nerdiest thing that I've ever worked on by far yes yes yes yes no it's it's super cool I just the the one question I wanted to ask on that are you guys going to implement that tool we might have used it on the cold water immersion study I can't be I can't be confident about I'm embarrassed that I don't remember I think we might have used it for that um in conjunction with the downs and black um but I would have to I would have to go and check yes I saw I I did actually see I did see that I think you did um I talked with Dr pack on that one that's why we've actually that one um for for for yeah well appr but that was also very cool thank you um Bas but just on that one um Dr Pac said he's not sure about sa can you quickly touch on on SAA and and heat or also not really sure about it convinced that it's good or bad I don't think it's I'm not convin it's it's probably not bad I don't think there's really any reason to believe that doing a sauna post training would be negative I don't think there's any data looking at that I could be wrong I don't think there's any data looking at heat exposure following resistance training I could totally be wrong about that I just don't think that there is I think we should do it I think we should do it next since she did it could be a cool study people sure as [ __ ] love going into and hot steam rooms and stuff like that I personally don't um my basic takeaway from from heat is that if it's and it's basically Dr Israel's takeaway as well is if it's something that calms you and relaxes you and you enjoy it by all means do it uh if not don't because there's probably not anything inherently beneficial about it like it doesn't seem to like those heat shock proteins that people up they probably don't pose any real health benefits um that brance benefits stimulating yeah yeah okay um yeah it's insane um but uh if it's something that calms you down basically anything that calms you down and relaxes you is probably good for muscle growth and performance so it's worth doing sure no that that makes sense so I just wanted to get your your quick quick take on that one the next one is your um sorry it's not loading here but your uh meth analysis on Creatine I think that's fluing cool paper let's let's check creatine because that's obviously the most please correct me if I'm wrong with anything I do say um I'd much rather have you you're about to be with it's like definitely the most effective supplement no I wasn't going to I wasn't going to say that but I do I do believe you since you're the guy who did the study but is it true that creatine is the single most studied supplement in the history of all supplements ever um is that is that true cuz that's what I've heard heard that there's over 500 dude I honestly don't know I I can't say that definitively I know that creatine is incredibly well researched um but I I'm sure there's like caffeine I'm sure has hundreds and hundreds of studies on it as well but like to call it a supplement like when you start talking about the difference between a supplement and a drug like it it gets a little bit murky it's kind of hard to say like for instance vitamins uh like there's a bunch of research out there on different vitamins so like it's hard to say whether or not like greeting is the most studied supplement ever it certainly is the most effective supplement with respect to muscle growth and and increasing muscular strength that has been researched um and with respect to that study there's not a whole lot to say with other than you saw um pretty substantial increases in muscle growth direct measures of muscle growth when individuals were taking creatine and it seemed to benefit younger individuals more than older individuals I think the standardized mean difference between all groups was .11 uh like the hedges G could be wrong about that it might not even be a Hedges G but either way the effect size was around 0.1 uh which doesn't sound like a whole lot that's like a moderate effect for sure but if you look at uh the generalized uh effect size of resistance trading protocols with respect to muscle growth you expect to see about three then this is a really incredible analysis by Greg Knuckles that he did for Stronger by science with respect to our paper and by the way Ryan Burke LED this paper I was just lucky enough to be a part of it fortunately um and he we he Greg Knuckles basically found that like within the first several weeks of taking it like because of the standardized me difference being 0.1 that basically is like a 33% faster rate of muscle growth for individuals taking catine as opposed to not um yeah so they're about onethird faster uh within the first couple of of weeks and months of taking it so I would say that like he said in the the the title of his like don't close the door on Creatine yet it's it certainly seems to be an effective okay and and dosage what was the dosage uh I think the dosage across all of the studies I think there was only one study that did five grams per day I think I help I helped with the coding of this study so so I should be able to remember this uh but the general dosing was 0.1 grams per kilogram which is a relative dose so there's not there's no studies comparing a relative dose to an absolute dose but if you take five grams a day you're the clear but if you want to get super Niche and specific take .1 G per kilogram of body weight a day which is to say that I take about s or eight gram of catine a day depending on where my body weight is uh but usually a standard dose of five grams per day is very clearly demonstrated to be efficacious so I would I mean you're safe taking the scoop that they give you it almost always comes down to five grams uh but if you want to weigh it out and be weirdly meticulous about it like the way double scoop that I do then I guess yeah yeah yeah true I mean like it's not there's uh one thing you can be certain of is that you're probably not going to take too much uh like you there's like definitely research uh showing that there's certain individuals that can't synthesize creatine because it's something that we actually make on our own in our body um and there's some data showing that that there's individuals that cannot synthesize creatine on their own and there's a lot of issues with that because your body needs creatine um and they take very high doses and see no negative health effects from doing so so the one thing you can be confident about is that you don't need to worry about taking sure and um based on what you just mentioned now is that uh with regards to creating nonresponders because I believe that something like again these are statistics you hear them you see them you never show if they have any validity I read somewhere that uh there 20% of the population are non-responders to creatin is that correct or is that complete nonsense so I actually don't know the percentage of individuals that are non-responders to creatine I do know that there are individuals out there that do respond to creatine but here's the good news if you don't respond to creatine it means you don't it it just means that your muscles are already saturated with creatine and taking it will no will pose you no additional benefit so it's not like you're missing out on anything if anything it's just saving you like couple bucks I don't know like $100 yeah it's like so cheap that like saves you like $50 a year like it's really not like a dollar a week um but like it's yeah if if you don't respond to creatine don't be like Oh I'm missing out it's it's just be like oh it's nice I don't have to think about taking creatine because my body my muscles are clearly already saturated okay so two two questions for you do mind just quickly I know it's not a quick thing but if you can quickly and easily simply summarize the creatine I guess the pathways and what the effect is on the ATP and and muscle energy that kind of stuff and then let's do that one first and then I've got another question after that that we can get to yeah for sure so your body makes ATP which is the currency of the human body or the body or and and I believe almost any organism uh live like um fauna that is yeah fauna uh so basically your body makes ATP through three General Pathways right actually not four but your body actually has ATP that it stores on hand so you do have endogenous ATP stores but they they burn out like that upon upon uh the onset of exercise uh but one of the quickest ways you can make ATP um is the through the phosphorilation of creatine uh so or actually I think it's de phosphorilation of creatine again once we start talking about like actual deep uh and like metab metabolic pathways we're getting outside of my realm of of how we can get as jacked as possible but point is your body uses uh creatine uh to make ATP very rapidly and it occurs for about it lasts for about the first five seconds or so of the onset of maximal uh exercise right so if you take creatine you saturate your muscles with more materials that you can use to create energy uh which allows for greater strength production greater power production and ultimately greater muscle growth over the course of weeks and months of training I don't know if that really answers your question we can go a little bit deeper if you want but that's just the general reason why you would want to take creatine because it allows you to produce energy faster for activities that we use in so is is a good analogy saying that if you take create again this is not guaranteed but uh for example you might without creatine get seven uh reps on a bench whereas with creatine you might get eight and then that over time okay yeah exactly so it's a great yeah it's a which is why It ultimately leads to more fossil growth over the course of months of taking it exactly and then um so uh next I heard that creatine is a peptide is that correct uh the it's a nitrogen containing compound it's like a it's it's an amino acid but it's not an amino acid so like what creatine is is it's an organic molecule like that's all I can tell you is that it's an organic molecule I tried finding this information it's not superly readily available I'm sure it is uh to someone that's much smarter than I am but I'm not really sure what creatine is other than an organic molecule um it and and that it contains nitrogen I don't think it's not an amino acid but it's like an amino acid it's not a protein but it's like a protein again sorry is like outside of my realm of expertise uh and I'm not even really sure what creatine is which is super embarrassing to say given I'm on a meta analysis that has to do with creatine uh but even hearing Dr Aaron Canal talk about it it's kind of confusing as to what cine actually is with respect to its molecule to look it up and I have before but it wasn't as no no worries I also struggle to find clear answers which is why I thought I'd just ask you it's absolutely not embarrassing at all and is don't I apprciate you know more than 99.9% of the population of the probably on this kind of stuff so I don't think anyone would uh fault you for not knowing everything um and the last the last thing on Creatine um I don't know if you saw the study on Creatine so obviously there's so many different types everyone always Hawks on monohydrate being the only type that you should do but I saw a study on HCL versus monohydrate and the finding of that study was actually um that monoy the ACL elicited um better well it was the only one of the different creatines that we studied that elicited change positive changes in um ffmi in the fat free muscle uh uh fat free in that one whereas creatin monohydrate didn't actually elicit positive changes um in that it was just a single study but it was just interesting to note that it there was the HL and the monohydrate the strength was the same but the uh the body changes composition changes were actually better in the HCL versus the monohydrate one just again a single study yeah I would have to see the study I can't speak on it without reading the actual study um but that is interesting that there's some data out there suggesting that I think it's Hydrochloric cine hydrocloride is better than creatine monohydrate because that's just not the prevailing idea but again I would have to look at the study itself before I okay but the one you guys studied was monohydrate yes oh yeah for sure and the one thing that I can say confidently is even if that study suggests that hydrochloride is better one it's way more [ __ ] expensive and two we can at least be confident that creatine monohydrate works the evidence is very clear on that so even if it does pose an additional benefit it's not like monohydrate doesn't work it's just that there might be something out there that works better but again I would have to look at that literature to give a more definitive answer on that sure sure totally totally understand thanks for your your thoughts and that and then we we're down to the last the last four p been super exciting are you still okay with time yeah yeah we're chilling okay cool cool so this next one was um the biomechanical ano and bench press the bench press study which basically was just to say that like yeah lean tisue and and that was like the best predictor of of uh of how well someone was going to to perform in the bench press but that study again doesn't have much to do with muscle growth shout out dere van a he was a great study um but not not a whole lot to take away from it the whole thing we were looking at just to see if there was different predictors of bench breath performance and I think the strongest correlative there was just uh lean tissue in general but I so I I get what you're saying it's like not related to muscle growth necessarily but I think it's super interesting that that is the find the finding of it not not that that's what I'd uh i' totally understand why that makes sense and that's what I would have predicted but there's so many people online and uh I know we can't use online as a good source ofation but that at least without doing some cutting of of of the Duds I guess but so many people are saying oh no strength is completely unrelated to to muscle and I just I just don't believe that for the slightest because I don't see a a a 70 pound or 100 pound dude deadlifting 300 kilograms I just I don't think it's possible and I think there's definitely a positive correlation between muscle size and MUSC strand to some degree inally some 70 kogam man has deadlifted three like 660 before right no I said I said uh 70 pound or pound yeah that one I don't think so I don't sound bad yeah crazy is that that guy's dots is off the chart yeah yeah yeah um yeah so I you know um I think that people who make the claim that muscle size and muscle strength aren't related are entirely wrong I mean of course they are all else created equal a larger muscle will produce more Force than a smaller muscle sure now that is not to say that muscle size is the predictor of muscle strength uh because obviously you can have an individual with way larger muscles whose tendons insert far higher than an individual with smaller muscles whose tendons insert far lower and that person is probably going to be far stronger than the other individual like tendon insertion has a huge impact on uh ability to produce Force right same with like limb length and other anthrop anthropometry uh but to say that muscle size has no impact on muscular strength is [ __ ] crazy there's a reason crazy yeah there's a reason why there are weight classes in powerlifting and to say that there shouldn't be would be great there's a reason there's a DOT score and a wil score there's a reason we have allometric scaling in like when we're measuring and comparing individuals across strength measures like yeah I don't know man that's that's no I totally agree with you um sir I I don't know quite what you referring to with regards to the uh I think you said tendon um to muscle yeah yeah so like your tendon insertion right uh where your muscle actually inserts on the because remember that all muscles do is pull bones closer to one another sure that's it or I guess further apart from one another depending on the muscle itself right sure but all they do is pull on bones that one we can definitely say so where that muscle inserts on that bone can have a huge impact on the amount of force it's able to produce and this just makes a lot of sense right uh unfortunately humans are all type one levers or type three levers I can never remember it's so embarrassing I know that our like necks and our calves are type two levers but aside from that I always get it confused if our muscles are all type one or type three it doesn't matter point being uh where the muscle inserts on the bone obviously is going to have a big impact on PO on Force so I'm going to stand up and I'm go for it go for it you're not watching my bicep inserts right here right yeah so in order to produce force to move something right I'm at a huge biomechanical disadvantage where the muscle itself has to produce a ton of force because it's moving a such a long lever right yes however if my bicep inserted here it would it would be able to do it would have to produce a far less Force because the moment in which it's acting on is far smaller or the lever that it's acting on is far small smaller right uh you can a really easy way of picturing this in your head is look at a door right the way the doors work the handle is on the opposite side of the hinge that the door operates on right and if you take that handle and move it to the middle of the door that door is then much harder to open and close than it would be uh originally right so that's what I mean by tendon insertion can have a huge impact on someone's ability to produce Force that's it so is that very similar to like limb length and that kind of thing it's the same biomechanics at at play similar yeah it's similar in in that like a longer a taller there's a reason all the best powerlifters are not very tall individuals like there are very few powerlifters who are very tall you know what I mean um uh yeah so like they just don't have to the the amount of uh distance in which they have to tra Traverse the implements that they're using is far lower than someone who has much longer limb lengths it's a little different uh because even though the limbs are longer you could say that the insertion points are the same um and then it gets confusing because usually taller people have long like the the they have more sarcom mirors in series uh so that allows for greater pull on the the the levers that they're operating on it's it gets um murky it extends beyond my understanding of of biomechanics and functional Anatomy um but yeah this is all to say that there's a lot of things that impact strength other than muscle size like for instance your brain can literally just be better at telling your muscle what to do than another person's like just truly a thing um but to say that muscle size has nothing to do with muscular strength is just it's just not in any way I get you I get you okay moving on to the last three so this next one is the muscular adaptations in drop set versus traditional training yeah uh meta analysis that we ran uh through Leman um and we just compared five studies comparing drop sets to traditional straight training so like just training with minutes of rest in between sets and we found no differences in muscular strength or muscle size uh when comparing those two groups uh there's some caveats especially to the strength in my personal opinion like I don't think that's a really good um I don't think that you should use dropsets if you're trying to get as strong as possible um and but we did see that there were big differences in the amount of time that it took so basically the takea away from that study was if you're someone who's short on time but you want to get maximally jacked well guess what can do drop sets and not worry that you're going to be missing out on any gains um because uh uh like even if you're limited on time you can get super jacked using drop sets like that's the big takeaway from that paper however I would say that if you're looking to get maximally strong drop set is probably not your best bet okay and that that probably goes nicely or maybe not the strength part but it's related to the the size I guess for the progressive overload study without progressing load so I I guess I sorry I read that one but I guess that's increasing repetitions leads to similar outcomes as to just increasing load in a double progression kind of kind of man not that's what the study was about but that that you can do either or or both yeah yeah yeah so everyone's going to do both obviously like you're stick to a rep range yeah yeah you're going to stick to a rep range and once you get outside of that rep range you add weight and then if you are on the lower end of that rep range you just hopefully continue adding load or reps sorry um but yeah the the findings from that paper are essentially like you can get jacked increasing reps or increasing weight over the course of at least eight weeks and you don't need to worry about uh not being able to add weight to your to your um to the bar week to week uh the the other good thing about that paper is like a takeaway is like if you're someone who's limited on weights uh for whatever reason let's say you're training at home for a couple of months you can be pretty confident that as long as you're uh providing some sort of a stimulus you don't have to worry that you're not adding weight to the bar week to week to week sure that's really cool and very useful for people that are stuck at home or or at a limited gym and things um you you make it sound like it's obvious to to increase load and uh and Reps U my girlfriend experienced the personal trainer for three months a very expensive one very good very Jack guy and he clearly knew some things and he didn't let her um go up and wait for 3 months on any exercises she she would got a bit stronger but then plateaued because she wasn't allowed to increase weight at all which I found completely ridiculous and I said no we need a new personal trainer or or something because it was a weird one and I know technique and stuff's important but technique on like a cable call kind of thing like you can probably go up from the lowest weight at some stage after a month or two yeah I mean that's ridiculous like it was I don't know if your girlfriend was paying too much for way too much sounds like I I think it was that Vibe of uh she probably said I don't want to get too bulky and then he's like you don't get too bulky if we don't go up but turns out that will make you just as bulky according to study at least the progressive overload study okay what do you mean what what like my point is like she was like I don't want to get too bulky so we're not going to add weight to the bar but it seems like as long as we're providing some sort of muscle growth stimulus meaning even if we're just adding reps to the bar it's going to grow the same amount of muscle so like that's not doing you any favors either if if you're worried about too bulky uh just in general though women don't worry about getting too bulky I've been Lifting for give anything to be too bulky get yeah exactly you don't it's just not something you need to worry about it doesn't happen by mistake it's like not driving your car because you're worried you're going to become an F1 driver or not yeah it's insane it's like you know I don't I don't like yeah it's like if you wake up one morning and you look at yourself in your like what the [ __ ] I'm like 20 pounds heavier in Jack like be the ever had that problem yeah it'll be the first person that that's ever happened to muscle growth is an incredibly slow U so you're not just going to wake up on day and be quote unquote too bulky and like you mentioned like if you are too bulky just stop training for a month or two and you'll lose all of it but don't do that please let do that I'm not recommending anyone do that but of course that is if if there is someone out there who just grows muscle too quickly like they're listening to podcast guess about how to get more J I get you that's fair enough that's fair enough I get you all right I think the last one I have here is the loaded um interet stretch um do you want to quickly chat about that one before we get to our closing stuff yeah sure so that's what it was interesting in that we just took 25 individuals and had them perform calf raises on one leg and just normal like normally and then on the other leg they performed calf raises and then did a 20 second stretch after they went to failure so really uh not a huge there was really no differences uh between groups uh the only difference is that we saw one millimeter difference of growth in the Solus muscle uh from the individuals doing an intercept stretch I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock into that to be quite honest I mean there's something to stretch mediated hypertrophy but um I mean there's no downside like aside from it being really [ __ ] painful I mean these the the subjects were really uncomfortable when they were having to do that um but aside from that there was really no downsides to doing the stretch so like it's not going to kill you to do it you know what I mean like it's not necessarily a bad thing to do that um but it's probably not going to make a giant difference with respect to how much muscle you're going to grow no I I get you and and it sound sounds like you're not recommending it at all so I'm not not recommending it right like it's not going to hurt you meaning like it's not going to gains well it's going to be painful but it's not going to hurt you like it's not going to like cause damage or anything like that and it's not going to result in less muscle growth if anything it'll result in a very slight increase in muscle growth but one that's like probably not even detectable by the human eye even over the course of like a training career so not something that I think is like absolutely necessary by any means okay okay and that was an untrained subjects so if there was that small of a magnitude of effect in untrained subjects then trained subjects have been doing calf raises for several years like man I seriously doubt that you're going to see a difference okay no fair fair enough cool well thank you for going through all your papers on Research gate sorry besides the ones we missed um that we previously chatted about with Dr pack like the cold water immersion and then any other ones that I that I miss sorry about those but thank you again like you gave such cool overviews let's let's get to the I guess closing kind of questions all right imagine you're on a space mission to Mars and and due to limited memory space in your space suits workout module you can only select 10 exact exercises to maintain your muscle size it can be any exercise but you have to be specific with your instructions for example you can choose overhand wide grip pull-ups as a single exercise and then close grip skull crushes on an easy bar as another exercise what 10 exercises are you choosing so probably a incline dumbbell bench press um the if we're being super specific probably somewhere between 30 degree incline and 45 degree incline probably closer to the 30 um for back probably do something like a close grip lat pull down um would be ideal and then also something like a bent over Smith machine row to my knees that way we're just hitting all of the muscles in the back that we really care about um and then for my delts I would do probably a cable lateral raise with the cable set to the height of my hand uh for my quads I would probably do a front foot elevated Smith machine lunge uh and a leg extension of some kind uh with the seat leaning all the way back and the resistance curve favorable to the lengthen portion of the exercise for the hamstrings I would probably do a seated hamstring curl uh for the biceps I would probably do a seated uh curl with the cable at behind my back so sitting like this and the cable at the height of my hand like that um would probably be the bicep exercise I did uh for triceps it would be the seated uh overhead barbell tricep extension so just sitting like this and tricep extension like that uh with my back supported uh ABS cable Crunch and I think that's it I would just hope that my Cales would stay the size as they are just from walking around essentially sure no I get you um no that's brilliant that that's fantastic that's all the you got you got your 10 in there and you may mentioned the long length position is that what you're trying to get for uh most your exercise as well um do you do uh long length partials in your training for sure yeah I do I do Len I do a lot of length and partials in my training and I do the majority of my work if it's not a length and partial it's probably an exercise that biases the lengthened portion of an exercise sure that that that bicep one you mentioned that the seated behind the back beian Co yeah exactly there we go there I call them seated Alberto curls because Alberto Nunes was the first person I ever saw do that exercise but okay but you're right yeah yeah seated beijan curls would be what they're like actually called super cool no that that's awesome that's perfect and then you you mentioned cars you'll hopefully get enough gravity on yeah exactly just hope that be walking around will keep my my Cales the size that they are exactly okay brilliant and then closing thoughts uh what advice or parting words of wisdom do you have for our listeners who are looking to embark on their own journey of muscle growth yeah so one I would say that look we just spent the last [ __ ] two and a half hours who knows uh just talking about all of the very specific and Niche studies that I've been a part of with respect to how we can optimize resistance training to get as jacked as possible uh but if you're looking to just embark on your own fitness journey and you're looking to get maximally jacked follow the three tenants of lifting uh for muscle growth and you will see the majority of the games that you probably care about your grandma won't be able to tell the difference between uh you do doing that and you following like a real like meticulous training program which is to say like there are a [ __ ] ton of roads that lead to Rome so find the things that you actually enjoy assuming that they adhere to these three principles those being you're training with somewhere between 10 and 20 sets for each muscle each week you are uh taking each of those sets at least somewhat close to failure hopefully somewhere between three and zero reps and reserve and you're choosing exercises that actually stimulate the target that we're interested in so basically you're not doing squats for your hamstrings what no I'm kidding yeah yeah exactly those are like seriously that's like that would you follow those three things you're going to see like probably all the Gams that you care about in your in your lifting journey I get you no and those are absolutely fantastic I don't think you gets better than those three tenants and uh thank you so much for your time I really appreciate it I really appreciate the work that you do and uh do you have anything on the that you're allowed to talk about or was it all top secret no nothing's top secret we got a bunch of cool studies coming out of leman's lab here soon which I'm really excited about we've got one on technique that's going to be really exciting this summer uh my dear friend Ryan Burke is conducting one on super sets right now which is going to be really great um and then me personally yeah I'm just going to keep uh dipping my toes into research and I'll keep just making cooking videos on Instagram of of me talking about lifting while I do it so uh nothing super crazy on the horizon other than a bunch of cool studies coming out that I have my a very little part uh a very little I don't know how to say this very little part in uh though I'm trying to help in in any way that I can so yeah be on the lookout for uh research that's coming out of leman's lab soon and keep your ears to the door in general because again this field is so new that [ __ ] is changing constantly so definitely keep your ear up because things are changing quickly and if you're not up to date on Research you're going to be wrong about something here soon absolutely so once again thank you so so much for your time do you want to just drop your social media so that people can follow like subscribe you know all that stuff of course yeah so I'm on Instagram which is like definitely the the uh platform that I'm most active on which just colan atall which is C m.e. and then I also post basically the same things on YouTube and Tik Tok which are just shorts of me again just cooking and talking about lifting while I do it so really nothing that crazy there um but yeah aside from that and for the like true nerds out there that actually care like research gate you just type in Max colem and I'll be the first thing that comes up awesome thank you so much once again Max and drop him a follow and like subscribe All That Jazz and uh thank you for your time Max yeah thank you so much for having me man thank you goodbye Gaines gurus thank you for listening and see you on the next episode of tmgp