TMGP Ep 27 with Pro Figure Athlete and Team Biolayne coach Ava Cowan and Student, Lecturer and Nutrition expert James Russo p1

ooh another white boy with a podcast pronouns Jim bro another white boy with a podcast you want to see the video it went viral High gains gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 27 I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming AA Cohen and James Russo onto the show for part one of their two-part series AA and James are key members of Team biolane contributing their expertise to the muscle growth podcast where they explore various aspects of Fitness Nutrition and muscle development with a special focus on the most important macronutrient for building muscle protein Ava Coen is a highly accomplished bodybuilder and fitness professional celebrated for her inspiring journey in health and wellness known for emphasizing mental resilience alongside physical strength AA shares valuable experiences to motivate others on their Fitness paths her approach Blends evidence-based strategies with relatable insights earning her respect throughout the fitness Community with countless bodybuilding titles under her belt Ava truly walks the walk making her insights invaluable to anyone serious about Fitness James is a senior in the applied exercise science program at Springfield College and has recently applied to yukon's PhD program in nutritional Sciences he is an issn Sports nutritionist a natural bodybuilder and currently serves as a teaching assistant for the Sports Nutrition course at Springfield James aspires to become a college professor focusing on the science of metabolism optimal protein intake supplementation and nutritional needs for bodybuilding since July James has been working closely with AA Cohen from whom he has gained invaluable insights into the Practical applications of nutritional Concepts he expresses deep gratitude for her mentorship noting that it has significantly enhanced his understanding of the field together aan James provide listeners with a blend of practical knowledge and scientific Insight on muscle growth and nutrition making their podcast episode an essential resource for anyone interested in optimizing their fitness journey in today's episode AA and James dive into a wide range of insights covering both personal Journeys and expert knowledge some of the topics include James's Journey from wrestling to bodybuilding and the challenges and rewards of that transition aa's impressive shift from personal trainer to Pro figure athlete including her completion of a rigorous 16-month cpts program that only two or three out of an original 60 in Florida managed to complete aa's discovery of lay Norton during his PhD which led her to compete in figure Universe Olympia and Arnold events eventually bringing her to work with Team biolane a full circle moment in her career aa's latest competitive Milestone as a wbff pro in 2021 the importance of sustainability in Fitness and lifestyle choices the power of visualization including leay Norton's famous striated glutes as a motivational tool deep insights into complete proteins and the essentials protein Lucine BCAAs and EAS M tour and its role in muscle growth the role of amino acids and overall Fitness a fresh perspective on processed foods emphasizing that processed doesn't mean bad highlighted by way as an example of a highly processed but high quality protein comparisons of protein sources such as casine PE and soy protein the significance of understanding rdas recommended daily allowances why regular blood work is essential for tracking health and fitness and so much more get ready for a truly informative episode hey gains gurus before we dive into today's episode we have a special shout out to our sponsor heart and mind essay if you're looking for a delicious way to boost your workouts their creating gummies can be found on take lot and are the perfect foit they're not just effective but also a tasty treat you can look forward to every day so maybe it's time to be like me and fuel your gains with heart and mind saay if you're injured or in recovery visit the injury consultant.com and schedule a free consultation to explore how I can help you heal restore and Thrive the injury consultant now also offers specialized packages for fat loss muscle gain and Longevity interested book your free consult today a little disclaimer this show does not contain medical advice the views and opinions expressed by guests on the muscle growth podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect my beliefs or The Stance of the podcast while we aim to provide valuable insights and information it's important to approach all topics with critical thinking encourage you to do your own research consider multiple perspectives and form your own conclusions healthy discussion is always welcome and I'm happy to engage with listeners in the comments to continue the conversation lastly don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms including Instagram YouTube Tik Tok and X find us at the muscle growth podcast and myself at reps with Rosco now let's get back to building muscle with science welcome AA and James to the muscle growth podcast where we explore subjects related to muscle science and hypertrophy I'm thrilled to have you join us for today's conversation let's Jump Right In and dig into some exciting topics together can you guys briefly introduce yourselves and your journey into the world of fitness and health you want to go first James sure so um I'm James I'm a senior right now at Springfield College in the exercise science program also a recent applicant to yukon's PhD program so um I'm I love all things exercise especially all things nutrition and especially all things protein uh definitely my favorite topic um I'm also a certified Sports nutritionist and that's kind of the boring stuff what people are really interested in is I'm also natural bodybuilder so uh coming into coming into college I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go um which direction I was in but um one thing I always knew is I've always been a very passionate person whatever I'm in I'm always all into it um so I came here for wrestling I was on the wrestling team for a little while and it just wasn't really clicking with me anymore and um so it was a really tough decision but I stepped back from that and I really Lov weightlifting So within a week of stepping away from wrestling I signed up for my first body bodybuilding show and uh I spent all year just researching and digging into it preparing myself without a coach um so you know first uh first time on stage didn't look great but um it was an incredible learning experience and um I was just I was just hooked so I spent the the rest of my few college Years I mean I'm still not done but um throughout the process I I got really into um exercise science and nutrition I've been studying it like crazy I just love it um and that kind of that moment really on stage kind of just dictated my life like I I realized how much I love bodybuilding and I realize how much I love all the mechanisms behind it and um that's where I'm kind of going with my life now so yeah that's about me well that's a fantastic story and I'm glad that it sounds like you found a new passion how was the transition from weightlifting to bodybuilding you said you took it up within a week you decided cool I'm doing this I guess you'd probably been doing weightlifting as training for weight uh for wrestling beforehand it wasn't new to you probably is that correct yeah so um I actually um I was in high school I did cross country track and wrestling and it's funny like like I know I mentioned I'm I'm very passionate but whatever I'm in like I am all into it so when it's cross country season I'm like all right I'm going to be the fastest I'm going to run as long as I can like I'm that's my life like nothing else and then season ends and we're in wrestling all right wrestling that's all I care about um and what happened my junior year in high school was um it was right after the wrestling season ended I was super motivated I did really well and I was I was looking forward to my senior year um hopefully making it to States and um and then Co happened and everything shut down so I was like all right how can I become a better a better wrestler so I started get I had some weights in my basement my dad was teaching me a couple you know a couple movements do some lateral raises here you know the bench press is how you do that you know try squatting like I guess we gotta hit likes too uh so I started weightlifting I was like man I really like this like this is a lot of fun and uh I started seeing a lot of progress so I started looking into things like on YouTube that's how of course L popped up that's kind of how team ban got uh like introduced to me um and I just loved the weightlifting and like what it does to your body and what was interesting was what I noticed was when I got to college and it was back to wrestling season right it was like okay so now I got to go back into wrestling I couldn't get into that zone I was just like man like I'm at practice like I'm tired of being thrown around like I want to I want to go back to the gym like that's where I want to be so I was just so into that that um I feel like it was just kind of building up inside of me so when I made the decision to step away from wrestling it was all right there for me and it kind of was able to really come out and expose itself so it was a tough transition at the time but once I made that decision I was like in my head I was already all in so it kind of worked out pretty well well that's fantastic and well done on on letting it work out and letting it play out so do you have a coach now since you mentioned you didn't have a coach for your first show and who is your coach is it Ava yeah yeah so right now Ava is actually coaching me to my next show uh which will be in April I'm super excited for before that um so like I mentioned my first show I coached myself um and then I did another one I loved it like off the bat I was so obsessed um it was a it was an OCB show um hosted by Joe Franco um and I loved it I was talking to him just more so about the um how everything worked and he so he offered to coach me um because he also promotes shows he coaches so he coached me to another show um and then I I was with him for a whole another year we did another show a year later and it ended up working out a lot better because I I did a proper muscle gaining phase a proper cut um looked uh a lot better and now going forward AA is coaching me to this next one so pretty excited for what's going to come to stage in April well that I think is a fantastic intro to yourself AA thank you James for that beautiful intro now on to you Eva that was great um so okay let's Zoom time back to gosh early 2000s I would say 2001 I um made a decision to be a personal trainer and I thought well how am I going to you know what what do you do to do that that like what's the gold standard how can I be the best kind of thing and I happened to live in the same city as Fitness Institute International so Dr Anthony Abbott and his wife Jane they had that school there like down the street and uh I was like okay this I'm going to do this and so there was like different modules and you know when you put the different modules together which you have to complete to um I don't know get your specialization or your certification as a specialist um I was like well you know I might as well just go all in just like James I'm like I'm in so I started and I knew in that first class I'm like oh this is it this is this is the thing you know and I wasn't into competing or anything at that time this was I just was looking for my career path so after the first module I was like this is really hot like you know I mean I don't mind CH I love challenges it was exceptionally hard and I thought is it just me you know like you know and so I would literally study all the time so if I was not in class I was studying and I did that for 16 months graduated as a cpts and that all of that gave me so much confidence I was like okay I've got a my physique good I know I could maybe do something with it and around that time figure that category came out and I'm like I would see the magazines and I saw Monica Brandt I actually saw Deana Medina and she was Miss uh figure Olympia and I was like that's what I'm going to do that that I can do that I can do that I just knew I could do it so then I had the confidence of having the education piece at least I could go into the gym and I knew about resistance training because if you graduate from that school at uh there's a 100% pass rate with ACSM and nsca so I was like okay I'm I I know how to train so I didn't get swooped up into too much bro science at the time though I did want to compete and so there's that's the space and that's what is sort of available in the in the space of competition prep so I ventured into a little bit of Bro Science kind of thing with getting ready for a show which was very wildly successful for me and I knew that was it I I competed in 2005 and I won the uh Southern States overall in my first show and it was just one of those Journeys where like everyone everyone told me not to do it like I wasn't how do how did they say it like I was up against everyone else's limitations and their limiting beliefs and I didn't understand it cuz I'm like no no no I I'm in shape I've done everything I can do this you know I really was set in my mind that it was for me and so nothing anyone said deterred me and so I did it and I mean it was basically the highlight of my life that that moment on that stage and I finally got told yes you know it was a yes yes it's you yes you're good enough and yes yes you can do this and I'm like okay it was Off to the Races so now that I knew I could do this thing and that everyone said it's a level five show it's too hard you got to know someone that's not true so oh I was like now what do I do because this is what I want to do for my career I want to be a pro athlete but I knew the way that I got ready for that show was not sustainable I was like there's just no way I couldn't put salt on my food I was cramping up in the gym and I had enough enough education to know o I can't this is there's something inherently wrong with not salting your food I'm I'm like you know this is just I can't keep doing this though I was so dedicated and driven I was willing to do whatever I was asked within reason um but so that set me off on a journey to locate a new coach so on body space I found Dr Lane Norton he was actually getting his PhD at the time and he was a lifetime Pro natural bodybuilder and so the draw for me was um wow he could get strided glutes natural I was like this this is crazy and I'm like this is the guy why is he not I was like why is he not huge but I was a little bit older you know what I mean because I was like this this how does no one H you know have him or found him but they had because he was super popular on the boards and he was that was in that time frame but I was getting ready for figure universe and I needed a coach and it was uh drug tested and so it was like a perfect time and we went for it and I won that show and um I worked with him for six years he prepared me for the Olympia stage the Arnold and it was just my covers and all kinds of things and so it brings me all the way back to um I best 2022 I was looking for my next phas in life I had just completed caretaking for my parents for 5 years so I could not continue my fitness uh career it was it's pretty detailed but I was just busy doing that so when that was concluded I reached out uh to team Boling and here I am now and then James comes into the picture uh this is interesting how all this comes full circle he applied to be an intern and I'm like oh gosh yes I mean I I want to I just saw so much potential you know we got to meet each other I got to see his work ethic and in a short period of time because what's important to me is your integrity and who you are so it's great the education and all that but it's the uh combination of the mind and the heart and the Integrity piece so that's what I'm looking for so we started working together and I was like hey you know actually his internship begins next year so I thought how can we start working together maybe before then because I could use some assistance with social media and all this so I thought hey can you help me with some posts so he starts doing a post posing post and like the subsequent post was the protein post I believe it's near there it was like creatine it was very shortly after the posing post he made that one and I'm like oh that was great that was and that's what got us here right now yeah it was great thank you literally as you said that is the exact post that I was like I love this post let's have have you guys on and now we're here so thank you James and AA for that contribution yeah thank you so please excuse my ignorance but cpts I assume that's some kind of um personal training uh certificate certified personal training specialist okay okay that's what a see yeah so you're like it's basically the top tier of being a personal trainer but even in that space there is no like deep regulation so to speak like there's a lot of variation between people who train people so uh I just felt um it was so hard I thought I mean I mean i' learned the anatomy physiology Kinesiology was very intense and so um but it was great so 16 months later yeah I was like it was great because I I passed and there was just two of us who completed out of like 62 or three people I was going to ask is that the school you mentioned that only two out of a class of 60 passed and it sounds like that's exactly the school it was the one in did you say in your hometown yeah I was in Florida so I went to school there yeah wow in Boer Ron it could it couldn't have uh it turned out better hey yeah it was good timing and then please correct me if I misheard but did you say in your very first show The Southern States overall you won the overall correct yes in your first show like the the whole thing and your lineup obviously yes wow the whole show the whole show you're the overall winner in your first show in my first show at 33 years old I my story isn't that good but I I've I've really that that's I think to when the I've never heard of someone winning overalls in their first show so that I think uh like you said after that you were like wow I can do this and I think uh getting the overall from your very first show that that would definitely lead you into being a pro athlete which which you were up until quite recently is that correct yeah my La I turned Pro in I've multiple organizations but the most recent one was 2021 with the wbff so I happened to come back into the mix and wanted to compete and I got my Pro card there in 2021 so not too long ago has um Dr Lan Norton been your coach since 2005 when he was studying his PhD you said you started with him has he been your coach all the way along or have you been with him and then with others or just just with them so the 2005 show he didn't prepare me for I was the um someone else okay so I've only I've been with him since 2008 okay so that was for the figure Universe he prepared me for that and then for six years after that so for the majority of my shows and my meaningful shows yes and he's um even I've had other coaches but he was still um very much guiding me and helping me for the most part absolutely and so with the figure Universe you won that show in your in your lineup or the overall as well the overall it's just not fair on everyone else well you know it's a thing that's why I'm that's why I know the kind of coach I'm going to be because I know what it takes to the level of programming the work that's outside of resistance training it's all the other things you must do if you want to win no absolutely so it was pretty deep it was pretty deep I knew I was going to win before I went there wow that's that's extraordinary well done and um so how many overalls do you have in in your pocket I can't even remember figure figure America figure Universe I I don't know oh wow that's incredible I don't know your trophy stand must really be struggling to stay stay up with all those medals trophies and everything else well um there's a few of them but I just the experience is what's the trophy to me and the what it meant to me to do that and how meaningful it was because how hard it is absolutely and it just people don't realize you know unfortunately particularly for women particularly attractive women um there's this judgment on your physical appearance not considering the um how hard it is you know the athletic considerations involved like it's a sport it's not even though but it's challenging because you have the hair the makeup but getting that lean is so incredibly challenging so um sometimes it's not as um noted as that but yes it's it was a lot of work and very rewarding well well done to you a huge congratulations on all your achievements and James you've got a lot to Aspire to there buddy so big shoes to yeah brilliant and and I and I wish you well on that journey and I hope to see you fulfill all your dreams as well how would you say before we get into the protein which is going to be the main topic for for this episode how would you say you've changed your you're kind of prepping for shows and your coaching based on your experience over and for example you mentioned that you cramped a lot and there was no salt and it wasn't sustainable how would you say you've you've uh changed your view on all of that subsequently wow I mean I've done the great thing is that I have the experience of doing it all the wrong ways I don't think people realize how important that is like you have you better blow it because it you got to know what you don't want to do and that's what drove me actually to meet Lane is because I'm like this can't be right but basically I do pretty much everything diff opposite from what a lot of competitors do but I had confidence because let's remember the visualization that I held in my brain of the strided glutes of Lane so anytime I was kind of like going because it's scary you I had success doing the Bro Science but again I was new and a first show you can get away with a lot and there's a many many ways to get across that stage and so I did but for sustainability you know I had to find a different solution so of course salting my food learning about macronutrients um learning about not eating just the same Foods all the time some people that does work for and it's a great setup and a scheme or um you know game plan but for me I was like I don't want to be so confined to feel like that I blew it if I'm not eating these exact Foods so I wanted to learn and that's what I did I love that message and I think uh a lot of people uh get analysis paralysis and uh they're too scared to make mistakes and they never actually learn anything because they never try so I think your message there of being able to get it wrong still doing really well even getting it wrong but then learning from your mistakes is is super crucial to anyone looking to embark on their own bodybuilding Journey or their own journey of health and fitness whatever they really want to do but actually just trying and then your other point on visualizing something whether it's Dr Lane's uh striated glutes or or something else you got to visualize something to keep you motivated well that was only when I was on the fence about what the heck am I doing because it was in such contrast to what I had done before and had success with so I was like holding on to understanding that I didn't know what was going on and I was just going to you have to you have to let your coach do the job and you have to go through the process and sort of surrender to it it's not you do have to do that otherwise it's going to be a constant battle um so I I wanted to just see how it went and it was great and I thought well I was eating a sub sandwich backstage from the day of the show and everyone else is not drinking water so it was like you know and I had Doritos and all kinds of stuff so it was like and I looked incredible he got me ready like he was he's the best honestly and my opion but well it's a it's a good opinion definitely definitely one of the best that's for sure um yeah so uh the LA last uh question I have for forever before we get into the protein topic how would you recommend for coaches maybe James one day want to be a coach or someone listening who is a coach how would you recommend coaches deal with difficult clients would you recommend that they rather tell the client if they're too difficult to find a different coach coach or are what is your recommendation for for trying to work around difficult clients or would you just tell them to go find a new coach go find a new coach go find a new coach I just my life is too I can't like I because I'm not a therapist so it would be hard to work you know be hard to work to those you know what I mean those sticking points like you'd actually have to go because if it gets to that point that there's something inherently off like you're not a match but that's a great question because I have not had to do that yet but I would like to move into that and figuring that out I don't quite know what to do about that because that's going to happen so I don't totally know other than the way it is to be with in your life just upfront honest I know not reactionary and just be honest with how you feel that's the best I can suggest well that's brilliant and well done on on being a team biolane for already I think two years and not having to drop any clients as of yet but I probably correction I probably should have I just don't know probably there was a couple that I'm like I should have maybe said something you know and I just sort of don't but that's something I need to work on correct so there's always something to fine-tune yourself with and I think having a difficult conversation would be the next thing I need to work on yeah I totally understand and it's it's great that you that you are aware of something that you could maybe improve on and that you're going to be taking that into maybe your future clients sorry to any of them that you Dro because of this conversation I'm really teasing um let's uh segue into uh protein biochemistry um going to let the James take it from here I think we're going to talk about protein biochemistry the protein molecule General functions and roles and then muscle protein synthesis um so James please take it away and then if there's time at the end then we'll Circle back to some of the other things that we talked about on the pre- topic discussion yeah absolutely so so protein is a pretty unique molecule um one of the three macronutrients along with carbs and fats uh what's different about protein is it has a nitrogen component so our other macronutrients are oxygen hydrogen carbon um protein has actually have it drawn up here uh we have a nitrogen component so it has an amine group hence amino acids so we have a carboxy group a central carbon our amine group and we have an R group on the bottom that R Group is what is going to distinguish which type of amino acid it creates and there's 20 different types of amino acids um it's very interesting how the body works because this the sequence of these amino acids determines the function of the protein itself and there's they function in like everything it's crazy like obviously we're more focused on the contractile tissue we're talking about muscle we care about like the actin and myosin we want to know about how to get bigger muscles but protein is still it's involved in enzymes which are going to facilitate catalyze different reactions in the body the immune system uh transporting molecules there's so much that protein does um that's just super interesting and I can go on about it forever but um if we're talking about um muscle protein synthesis so just to backtrack a little bit right we have our amino acids we have 20 of them like I mentioned um so nine of those are essential amino acids 11 11 of them are non-essential what that means is those nine essential amino acids are going to be things that we need to get throughout our diet because our body can't produce them and like I was saying before like since protein is involved in so many different things we can actually create some of those on our own just by kind of removing the R Group different things that happens Within at a very deep molecular level um but those nine essential amino acids we cannot synthesize in our body so we have to get them from the food that we consume and a protein containing food uh that has all nine of these is called a complete protein so if you ever hear somebody saying like you should be having foods that are um you should be eating more complete proteins um which are going to be more like animal based products um it's because they have all of the essential amino acids that we need to function properly and just to narrow that down a little bit more the if we're looking at those essential amino acids three of them are called the branch chained amino acids um when people hear that typically they hear of the supplement they're like oh BCA and there's a lot about that that people are like oh are they helpful are they not helpful if we're looking at it again at a fundamental level right we need these amino acids and I'll get into this a little bit later about how they function for muscle growth but we need them to actually start this process um and when we're specifically looking at stimulating mtor building muscle we need the three bcas which are Lucine isol leucine and veine those three amino acids um are going to be very high in foods like chicken in Whey protein powders which by the way very processed so if anybody says processed foods are bad for you inherently because they're processed BS whey protein is one of the most process processed things and works pretty dang well for muscle growth you know according to the research the randomized control trials as Lane would like to say um so when we're looking at the process of muscle protein synthesis right there's a lot of different things that happen in the body um but what most people hear what's trendy people have no idea really about how it works is the mtor pathway that is a pathway that is stimulated by um a couple conditions that have to be met and when that's stimulated properly and it's optimized that is when muscle growth occurs so for that to happen we need to have enough energy which is why when I say energy I'm talking about calories um which is why when you're deep in a prep it gets really hard to maintain muscle because the goal if you're if you've seen any bodybuilder a couple weeks out they're not you know adding pounds to their bench or building significant amounts of muscle math uh and of course like we're talking about natural athletes specifically um but regardless it's very difficult to build muscle when we're in a caloric deficit it's not impossible but it's very difficult because for the conditions of hypertrophy to be met for mtor to be stimulated we need a sufficient amount of energy and we need an adequate amount of amino acids that are available so that being um Lucine specifically which is going to trigger that um and to optimize it which is obviously not like we don't live in a research lab but if we we all want to know the numbers um three meals with three grams of Lucine um that's going to really optimize that mtor pathway so those are the conditions and we still now need an exercise stimulus to produce that and and stimulate this pathway for muscle growth to occur so when we have enough energy and we have sufficient amount of amino acids available and we give it that exercise stimulus now once we finish that workout and we're able to recover say we just smash legs we're going crazy like two hours in the gym whatever doing whatever workout that is properly stimulating enough tension and we have enough amino acids whether you had them before or after you out which is another topic we'll probably get into later um and those amino acids are available once you rest and we're shutting off our other Pathways we're parasympathetic amk is down mtor is stimulated now we can begin to build muscle and lay down new tissue which is the overall goal and it's a constant process that's always happening so we need a sufficient amount of amino acids constantly and we need to be exercising constantly of course not too much there's a balance and this is where the science the coaching the training and all of this is a science but also an art that needs to be Blended properly because we can say you know this exact amount of protein during this minute after this exercise but you know what happens when I have to drive home after the gym or what happens if I only have a certain amount of time or you know have to pick up my kids from school or like life has a lot of challenges so this is where we have to blend the coaching and the Art of coaching with the science which is something that Ava is has you know maybe she won't admit it but mastered really well um and yeah I know I got a little bit off track but um yeah that's what I have to say about protein so far I don't think you got off track at all I think you were very much on track the whole time um but that was that was fantastic really uh yeah we're going to struggle to get things in in time but this is GNA this is that already alone was like there's so much to to go through I'm stuck for where to start but I'll just start quickly on the you mentioned the amino acids it's so interesting literally yesterday I um published an article on medium uh under reps with Rosco where I published scientific articles and literally that was the topic was amino acids and going over the 20 different amino acids and um and what you mentioned about uh processed being bad as everyone online seems to claim as it was actually Dr Le Norton who mentioned this that I learned about that buzz word not meaning much when he mentioned that if you cook your food like on a fire or like on a gas stove or however you cook it that is no longer raw and therefore it's processed food even though it's minimally processed so it shows you that processing your food is not necessarily bad as you mentioned a great example is whe protein highly process but a fantastic um stimulus for buolding muscle proven time and time again and uh also high and Lucine as you mentioned I just wanted to check I I highlighted Lucine as being incredibly important I think you mentioned the three G Lucine study was that um Professor Brad Shel I think he might have done that study um and I just wanted to check is there anything else special about lucing so we know that we think it's important for uh the mtor pathway and sufficient energy that kind of thing is there any other reason why lucing and it's uh one of the essential amino acids I believe and it's one of the branch chain amino acids is there any other thing that makes it in particular so important for end stimulation um nothing else in particular the the main thing is just making sure there's a sufficient amount of it available um to stimulate really the magnitude of that response so when we're looking directly at mtor lucin's going to be one of the main drivers of that um there's we still need all of the essential amino acids and that was something else I wanted to highlight is that like people and I hopefully we'll get to later I'm just talking about the um like amount that you can take in in a meal and use for protein synthesis um but all of these amino acids like Lucine is important and it gets the pedestal by everybody but all of these other essential amino acids are essential for a reason and like I highlighted before you know um transport proteins enzymes immune function um connective tissue there's just so much that protein is involved so all of the amino acids have their own role and when we're building a protein um which just to go back a little bit like proteins are made by ribosomes when basically they're coed from the DNA they're they're transcript there's transcription that happens from the DNA to RNA which is then trans um translated in the ribosome to certain amino acids and this happens like in our deep in our cell and each one of these amino acids is coded for and it's a specific sequence that makes a specific protein so every protein has its role but every amino acid also together when it's organized in a certain pattern it gives it a certain function so we could say like breaking them down at a at a minimal level is really important for specific things but also when we're building proteins we need a specific spefic sequence that is encoded by our DNA into our RNA um that just makes like all these different things do different things in the body pretty much which is just like I mean I I'll like nerd out about this all the time but it's just so interesting to me how like this our body just codes things it's literally like coding it like a certain way like you're on a computer it's just it's so interesting to me absolutely our bodies are total machines and they are they are incredibly complicated um and they are so fascinating and I I love your enthusiasm and your passion for for the biochemistry and the and the protein and and all of that and it sounds like you're uh following leay Norton's passion for for the nutrition and the protein especially I think that was his PhD topic actually with the dairy industry or something like that um on the BC like you've just made it sound like amino acids are so important and I get that they are why excuse my total ignorance but why are BCAA supplements considered trash online is it purely because we get enough BCAAs from our diet and how true can that be for everyone because I believe that like you said the be um Lucine is found in meats and proteins and those kind of things would would that remain true for vegans or should vegans Maybe supplement with BCAAs and would it actually be a problem uh with getting eaas BCAAs in a in a supplement or is it just to do with the bioavailability or why why is it considered so taboo to get a BCAA product and some people they they still like them even if it's just expensive flavoring or what what is your thoughts on BCA supplements versus EAA supplements versus EAA and BCAA combined versus why can't we just get a full stack 20 amino acid supplement why why can't we just get that is it to do does it degrade or why can't we just have a all-in-one you know you sorted you take the supplement and I know that that's a there there a silver bullet that doesn't exist but why doesn't it and um yeah can you explain why B is or Cena's track yeah so that's a that's a great question um really if you are consuming a a diet with complete proteins and adequate amount of protein which we'll touch on is is really the main driver um hitting your total daily intake is going to be at the the base of that pyramid that's going to be the most important thing so if you are which is most people if you are consuming adequate protein and your diet consists of a variety of different sources that are complete proteins you're most likely good if you are vegan and you're not get or there's other foods that you don't eat and you don't get enough of these essential amino acids then taking an EA or a BCAA supplement could actually be pretty Bene uh beneficial for you because you might not be getting enough of those amino acids or um what we see with a lot of plant-based products which you touched on like they're not as bioavailable their structure is just a little bit different it's harder to extract what we want from them so you might have to increase the amount that you take in or you could supplement with an EAA um powder or something like that which honestly like I suggest for a lot of people who are very plant-based or or have other restrictions that they won't be getting a lot of compl proteins they're seen now as trash by most people because most people are getting enough and they're not really making a big difference um now when we get really late into contest prep and like I mentioned before like one of the primary things for m um is sufficient energy so if we're if we don't have sufficient energy which you know AA knows like when you're deep into a prep you're not getting a lot of calories um but you still need the goal might not be to build more muscle but to hold on to what you have it's almost like if you think about a brick wall right like when we're bulking we're building this brick wall up um and when we're cutting we're pulling blocks out of the bottom of it because muscle is such a metabolic Al active tissue that our body is like let's just take it from here because that's going to you know then we won't need to use as much energy so we need to be getting enough protein to make sure that we're as the bricks are being pulled from the bottom we're still stacking them on top just to maintain what we have so when we're deep into a prep um we might more often go into a negative nitrogen balance or a catabolic State and we need BCAAs um or not I don't want to say need um but taking like a BCA supplement say when you're training so that that's available for you to be laying down um like immediately it's not a bad idea but um again it's not a necessity for people who aren't getting enough I think it's it could be a really helpful supplement um but for the majority of people if you're hitting your total daily protein every day and you're eating variety of foods that are mostly Whole Foods just because of you know the diverse array of nutrients that you can receive from them you should be covered for the most part so if that answers the question it does and brilliantly so so thank you thank you for that I just wanted to quickly ask another question I I've heard online and again I'm not saying online is a good source of information it is sometimes especially if follow you guys but um people have been saying that uh plant protein isn't a complete protein but I've heard subsequently that it is a complete protein I just wanted you to clear this up so I've heard now that it is actually a complete protein and it's making me think that maybe it's just in low amounts and low bioavailability or a combination of being low amounts and bioavailable uh is that is that correct is it actually a complete protein or is it actually not a complete protein so soy is a complete protein and quinoa is also a complete protein most plant proteins are not um it's so those are two that and that's why you'll often see like soy protein powders um or things like that and PE protein CU I see that's a popular supplement is that complete or not honestly I'm not too sure I don't want to give a wrong answer that's fine and that's a perfectly that's a perfectly valid answer so thank you for being honest I love that that's the best answer you can give when you're not sure it's just saying sorry I'm not sure um but is it to do with sorry is it to do with the low amounts so it is complete you mentioned the soy and the quinoa but in general uh as well even with those ones is it low amounts of uh the the amino acids and not as bioavailable as the way for example so relative to things like chicken or um whey or casin the it's definitely it's still um a complete protein because it contains all of them but if we look at the and I don't know the exact amounts but if we look at like if we look at a serving of each of them and we look at the amount of Lucine content in each of them there's not going to be as much in those plant-based products plus it is less bioavailable so it's going to be more difficult to extract as much as we want out of it so for people who are uh a completely vegan diet it's usually like taking those e EAA supplements could be really helpful um just to kind of make sure you're covered almost like with like with a multivitamin like you could be getting enough of your vitamins and minerals um and of course blood work is going to be the most important thing to say but you could be getting enough of those but taking a multivitamin relatively cheap um it's almost like an insurance policy like you know you're like if you don't hit it know that that multivitamin is going to top you out um and it's the same thing like with those like if you're consuming a vegan diet um you could be getting like if you're pairing um complimentary protein so like almond butter and oats or rice and beans which are not um complete proteins on their own but when you combine them we now have a Bolis that has all of the amino acids that we need um it's still going to be difficult to yet as much so we might just have to consume more protein to kind of make sure we're covered absolutely and sorry last question on the eaas I've also heard if you're fasting and going to work out that maybe eaas or bcas would be a good idea to have um pre- gimm if you've been fasting is that corre I again I don't recommend going to gym in a fasted state if you weight training or if you're doing resistance training but would that be a good thing to do if you in insisting on not eating before gym yeah it's definitely not a bad idea because if you um once you've been fasting for a while so sleeping hopefully you're sleeping enough and that's another thing that's really important for muscle growth um you've now gone eight nine 10 hours without eating so you're in a very um catabolic State and now you're going to train um you're going to be you're not going to be maximizing your results so making sure you have a EAA supplement before could be pretty helpful if you're consistently training fasted because now you have that source to tap into um while you're training it's it's going to enter the amino acid pool so they're available and right when you're done now those amino acids are available in the bloodstream and they're ready to be like all right let's take me up I'm ready brilliant so it is a good idea if you're going to do it faster but I I assume AA and yourself would probably not recommend training FAS Ed is that correct definitely not I know some people have some issues with their stomach and that would be a scenario to bring in that the you know the supplementation um you know if you're not eating but no definitely not fasted and I like that you you caught the edge case and again guys with everything we say there are always edge cases and so don't just take our W for it you got to use your Noggin as well sometimes on the multivitamin I know it's easy said than done um on the multivitamin so it's actually incredible another article that I wrote was actually on nutritional reference values and um those are not optimal there's a big difference between nrvs which is like the minimum amount not to get like some condition versus an optimal amount do you want to quickly just touch on that and then we can get on to the next thing which I believe is um protein intake total intake calculation significance and space considerations yeah so um kind of similar actually I'm glad you mentioned that because it's similar to protein um when we're looking at like rdas and things like that those numbers are um and what a lot of people don't realize because when we blast out a recommendation to the general public it's based on enough research of course but it's not based on every individual of every demographic in every situation um at every single like number that they could give you like if we do and that's why this is why we need to replicate studies because if we do and I think there's something Lane said actually once like if we do two studies if we do one study and we see like this value is better than this value oh that could mean okay this is optimal or that could mean that's just the second worst that it could be and the the one the lower value is the worst so we need to replicate these um and a lot of these um recommendations are based off of very general numbers that are just to be enough to survive and to not get different diseases um with a lot of vitamins so it's very individualized so again that's why getting blood work is really important because you can see where you're at and what you need um and to Circle back to protein uh like the recommended daily allowance is like8 grams per kilogram a body weight which is like extremely low and you know that's it is and like yeah maybe that's enough to survive but I think we're all looking to do more than that yeah you want to thrive and you're not going to thrive on 0.8 grams to thrive I genuinely believe you need decent protein and to to work out with resistance training or some form of stimulus for your muscles absolutely AA on on that note what's the most protein you've ever consumed like gramage wise would you say to hear aa's response you're going to have to tune in again to the next episode of the muscle growth podcast thank you for tuning in to the muscle growth podcast if you found value in today's episode we'd really appreciate it if you could leave us a fstar rating and a quick review it helps us grow and reach more people just like you don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms including Instagram YouTube Tik Tok and X find us at the muscle growth podcast and at reps with Rosco for more insights exclusive content and full episodes visit the musclegrowth podcast.com your support truly makes a difference so please like share comment and follow we're grateful for every bit of it until next time keep pushing your limits and staying focused on getting 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