TMGP Ep 31 with the world-renowned Muscle Researcher and PhD student Daniel Plotkin 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 gains gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 31 I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming Daniel Plotkin onto the show for part two of his two-part series Daniel Plotkin is Making Waves in the world of exercise science and muscle physiology currently pursuing his PhD at Auburn University Daniel is not just a researcher he's a passionate advocate for evidence-based Fitness practices that can help individuals achieve their muscle growth goals Daniel's journey into the realm of muscle physiology began with his own passion for fitness and strength training over the years he has immersed himself in understanding the intricate mechanisms that drive muscle hypertrophy the process of increasing muscle size his commitment to unraveling the complexities of how our bodies respond to different types of training has positioned him as a thought leader in the field one of Daniel's most notable contributions to the fitness Community is his recent research comparing the effectiveness of squats versus hip thrusts for muscle growth the study has sparked considerable interest among trainers athletes and fitness enthusiasts alike as it challenges traditional Notions about which exercises are most beneficial for building strength and size in the lower body Daniel will share practical science-based takeaways that listeners can incorporate into their own lives this episode isn't just about research it's about real world application you'll find valuable insights to enhance your understanding of studies related to hypertrophy and the basics for getting jacked the simple stuff Beyond his research Daniel is dedicated to ad advancing our understanding of muscle growth through education and Outreach he believes that by sharing knowledge and fostering a community grounded in science we can all make better decisions regarding our health and fitness Journeys so whether you're a gym goer looking to maximize your gains or a coach seeking evidence-based strategies for your clients this episode promises to be both enlightening and engaging join us as we explore the fascinating world of muscle physiology with Daniel Plotkin in today's episode we dive into a wide range of insights some of the topics include how are sets counted in research why is it so difficult to know exactly in terms of a stimulus ratio per exercise why are EMG studies obsolete optimal sets range optimal set ranges for muscle growth experimentation volume maximum effective volume maintenance volume minimum effective volum volume diminishing returns volume maximum growth for given value or given volume maximum growth potential factors affecting muscle growth sleep stress protein calories practical takeaways sets per muscle procession training close to failure volume individual variability why is it so hard to provide for individuals practical takeaways for experience lifters and so much more get ready for a truly informative episode if you're injured or in recovery visit the injury consultant.com and schedule a free consultation to explore how I can support your healing restoration and journey to thriving Health the injury consultant now offers specialized packages for fat loss muscle gain and Longevity interested book your free consult today a little disclaimer the show does not contain medical advice the views and opinions expressed by gu guest 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 I 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 so how are uh stats counted in research and current volume studies I think they either zero or one um is that correct and how how would you count a set in in research yeah so typically they are counted as either zero or one and there's obvously limitations to that from a a application standpoint but within the context of research I don't think how you count it matters too much as long as you use a consistent way of counting for the particular study so because you're controlling all the other variables let's say I count a bench press as one for tricep and one for chest then the other group is still using that same counting mechanism so and they're using the same exercises very importantly that a zero or one ends up being pretty useful as just a tool to put a number on it but that exact number doesn't matter that much when we're comparing within a study but when you compare across studies then you could actually make Arguments for using fractions and so on because now you're trying to get at all right how do I use this to apply to my training as opposed to within the study itself ites doesn't necessarily matter which number you use because of the fact that all of the other variables are accounted for but when you're training all all the other variables aren't accounted for obviously I could use one specific exercise for tricep you know I could use let's say a tric of overhead versus a bench press there's going to be distinct differences between those two exercises and how I choose one versus the other in my own training is going to be important while in a study both groups are doing the bench press and the trip overhead so how I count sets in order to see whether there's a dose response relationship for volume is accounted for because of the fact that they're using the same exercises they're using the same rest period and so on but a recent meta regression in order to try to get at seeing how do we apply this to our own training actually use fractional sets so they used 0. five for everything that was a synergist so where it wasn't the the prime mover quote unquote for an exercise and that's honestly going to be subjective as well but if you're trying to get at all right how many sets should people do in the world as opposed to trying to isolate a question in a study making some of those decisions is probably a good idea so you realize the limitations of using the fractions but also realize the upside of using the fractions when you're saying all right this is how many sets you should do per week while realizing that we're counting indirect sets so rows will count as 0.5 for bicep and one for lats and presses will count as one for chess 05 for tricep so that way when you get that final number you can actually contextualize that final number but that's only when you're trying to apply that to training within a study itself how you count is a bit less important because of the fact that you're accounting for all the other variables hopefully that makes sense i r on there a bit no that makes perfect sense would um for example for let's use bench press because everyone loves bench um except for me um anyway and people with long arms um where did you say that chest let's go with one again for bench for chest and then you said maybe 0.5 uh in this particular case of the synergestic uh for uh the tricep and would you also say .5 for maybe the front delts yeah that's that's how they went about going okay that's how they went about doing things for the Met analysis they did okay and I think I agree with that largely I like that I think although I know you just suggested not to go too deeply into it I think I am going to re look at my uh programming and uh try add the the .5 just to make it slightly more optimized um but like you said it's probably not necessary but I I have actually tried to do something like that um in the past but I think now we'll just use .5 and one and zero in my in my new program um yeah so I think uh yeah to continue on the bench press topic I think it's a very reasonable fraction to say 0.5 anterior delt .5 tricep and one chest and I think that's a good way to even sort of conceptualize it for your own training but the reason I think that for your own training it matters even less is because you can just get a sense for what you're trying to do within your program where you don't necessarily have to put a fraction onto these things because the fraction is somewhat arbitrary the reason why the fractions are useful for meta analysis especially a meta regression is because you need to put a number on things you're trying to quantify what that dose response is but for you as an individual just realizing that oh the longer the tricep is going to get less stimulus in the bench press and just realizing that the rec sets are probably going to be a bit more stimulous what that bit actually is is not super super important within the context of your overall program if you're covering your bases adequately and just realizing the limitations while you program but when you're actually trying to quantify variables and trying to see what the do responses you have to make those decisions because there needs to be a quantification but in your own programming you're like all right I want to just do a couple of exercises that are not isolation exercises a couple of exercises that are isolation exercises that historically and through the literature are probably going to end up being you know about 18 or so sets for tricep let's say total and that's if you count it as one but if you count it as 1 and 0.5 it might be something like a 14 or 12 and so on so the exact number for your own training matters a lot less in terms of how you count it because of the fact that you know what you're doing in terms of covering your bases you know that those compounds are going to hit a muscle particular way and those isolation movements are going to hit it this way you know how you typically recover from the two and you can just create a good well-rounded program while being within the ballpark of those volume recommendations regardless of how they're actually counted but but as I was saying if you were trying to quantify things from a research standpoint then you have to put a number on yeah I think 0. five is probably the most reasonable way to go about doing things because of the fact that it's just easy in terms yeah it's so easy all right I'm gonna go 0. 51 Z but if you start getting into really weird areas where it's like all right how deep are we gonna get 27 yeah no it's arbitary exactly yeah so I think practically speaking using 0. five versus one is something that's super useful just in terms of allowing you to have that level of binary Choice when you have weird fractions where if you start trying to rank exercises you'll end up in a super weird area where okay if this is bias let's say a seated hamstring curl versus lying hamstring curl there's uh some evidence that the seed at hamstring C is more hypertrophic are we going to count that as a 1.2 now or you know so it just ends up being super weird where I think as long as you make a decision and know why you're making that decision then that's good as opposed to trying to make it perfect and then ending up in a super weird area where you don't even know what the number means anymore because you applied so many weird fractions and made it so convoluted so I would say just try to keep it simple when you do it and if you're going to count sets I'd probably go with something that is either the binary one or zero while keeping in mind the indirect sets or going 1.5 and then now you have accounted for the direct sets but just as an example let's say you used a one for the bicep you'll just know that that volume is going to end up higher because for or all the back exercises the bicep counted as one so when you think about that 10 to 20 sets per muscle group per week number you know that you're going to be on the higher end if not a bit higher than 20 for the bicep if you count all the rowing as one but if you decided to count it as 0. five then all right now it's going to end up more within the realm of that 10 to 20 so it's it's something that you can just either account for intellectually or if you're going to use a number just make those numbers simple and understandable absolutely I really like that advice um like you said uh the 1.2 for uh I think you said um uh seated versus lying like you said it can just get super messy and that can go even further like if you for example uh put your seat further back on like a leg extension now is it different to if it's at the front because you might have a slightly different stimulus and it's actually just too many factors it's going to make your life so much more difficult and we'll go right back to the beginning keep it simple um consistency and hard work that'll be better than trying to maximize uh or optimize rather your exact sets and your exact putting an orbitary number on a particular exercise for a particular muscle I would have suggested a few years ago using um emgs to try and uh try and adjust but now we know that em G are maybe not actually a great um indicator of muscle growth um and that's just an example of how I've changed my opinion on on something U do you mind elaborating on why emgs are now actually not considered very useful for uh for basically I guess measuring muscle growth or stimulus all that kind of thing yeah so there's a decent amount of reasons why you should be at least cautious when using the tool so I think often you'll have situations where it's like all right if the EMG is blaring in one area and just crickets in another you could be pretty decently confident that the muscle is getting less juice quote unquote for the Crickets example but when things start to get a little bit murky especially when exercises are hard in different positions especially when you need to account for Passive tension just really realizing what the EMG is measuring which is excitation so the amount of signal that's being sent by the nervous system but not the actual Activation so the cross Bridges and so on so once you fatigue you also have issues with correlating excitation and Activation so just tons of things that make it at least a murky enough relationship where often times my question is if something is fairly obvious from a biomechanical standpoint or from the research that showed actual outcome standpoint and the EMG confirms that that's cool but are there areas where the EMG can actually give you information that you couldn't have gleaned otherwise that would change your decision-making and I think as it currently stands there's not really an area where I see that EMG allowing me to make inferences about something that I wouldn't already have come to that conclusion generally with some other route so can it help in the decision-making process yes or no and often times that answer is no I'm open to in the future there being ways in which it is useful to just use EMG in order to come to a specific clusion but at least currently I'm very skeptical without direct evidence absolutely and I mean uh some uh well I'm mention Bol science they they had a lot of videos on emgs and I I followed them and I thought that oh this is this is proof this is definitely proof that this is the best exercise and I chose my program based on B of Sciences advice um which is in hindsight not the right way to do it because as someone explained the EMG can literally change based on your positioning so for example if you put it in one uh part of your body for your um chest for example and then very and then obviously everyone's chest has a different kind of shape even if it's minimally different it's not going to be the exact same place on everyone which will give a not a completely different result but arguably a different result enough that it's actually no longer useful yeah there's a lot of context where the EMG will give readings that aren't necessarily mapping on to what we would expect in terms of even excitation so you can think of the glute uh during a hip thrust it kind of bunches up at the top of the hip thrust so um it's hardest in the shortened position and you see really really high amounts of excitation there and so what that means from an actual hypertrophy standpoint is still up in the air so I just think that using it as a tool to generate some weak hypotheses I think is useful um but trying to actually come to a strong conclusion I think would definitely be a mistake uh as you get into areas that like the movements are super similar and so on you know and the velocities are similar then maybe you can make some better hypothesis but I'm just not convinced that you can come to until I see evidence that shows that you can actually see Direct effects from the inferences that you draw from EMG I'm just not convinced that it's a useful tool at the present moment but that's not to Discount EMG as a tool for other things so I think people anytime they look at EMG research they like oh EMG is [ __ ] and I think the hypertrophy Community might have created that when there's actually a lot of really really cool EMG research with indwelling EMG that look at when motor units actually come online so motor unit Recruitment and uh you can also measure the firing rate with indwelling EMG and also high density EMG so basically trying to get at all right how is this movement actually being created in terms of the Threshold at which motor units are recruited and the rate at which motor units fire so I think that's some really cool research using usually more advanced EMG so can there be conclusions drawn in a clinical setting can there be conclusions drawn from a specific what are you looking at from what the nervous system is doing setting sure but trying to map on things to hypertrophy is you know on very shaky ground currently absolutely and you make a great point about not discarding it for other uses and uh but maybe for the purpose of hypertrophy we leave it for now um so you've mentioned the 10 to 20 set range a few times can you just very briefly elaborate on on that and second question how would you adapt that now say someone like myself wants to use the 0.5 for an indirect um set would you say that now I should maybe look at 7.5 to 15 or keep it 5 to 10 or tip 5 to 15 what would your opinion be on adapting that set range now based on the .5 inclusion yeah so just briefly I think that the vast majority of evidence shows that moderate set volumes are higher than lower set volume so you know doing something like 12 versus six pretty confidently gets greater growth across studies and there's much less variability there once you get up to you know 20 plus When you're counting sets as one then you have some neutral studies but still a decent amount of positive studies so there's still a signal for there being greater growth at much higher volumes but there's a point of diminishing returns at those higher volumes so if you want to pick up all the gains possible experimenting with those higher volumes is probably a good idea but experimenting with those higher volumes usually means experimenting with a couple of muscle groups while other muscles are doing less volume because most of the studies are looking at a couple of muscle groups not the whole body so training the whole body at you know 253 sets probably not the best idea so long story short moderate volumes probably get you the most bang for your buck if you're really trying to experiment with a given muscle going higher volumes might be a good idea at least for experimentation but when you do that experimentation just realize don't smash every muscle with those High volumes because then just systemically and people who have tried it generally are you know in the same boat that just trying to get every single muscle group to 30 is a nightmare for the vast majority of people there are people that can tolerate it especially over time but uh it's it's few and far in between and probably not worth the effort in terms of the amount of bang for your buck per set and then when it comes to adjusting that number with the 0 five I think you can adjust it downward a bit uh so probably something that looks more like an 8 to 16 type deal maybe an 8 to 15 but for me it's more about just looking at the actual program than it is really the that's why it's a wide range like 10 to 20 they're like well how the heck am I supposed to you know 10 to 20 is a super wide range how many sets should I do just tell me stop keeping the secret so that way you can get Jack and I EXA gatekeeping it's a wide enough range where I think the range gives people the wiggle room to choose the exercises that are that make the most sense for them while not necessarily getting too bogged down with that exact number but yeah you can scale it downwards slightly if you're doing the 0 five particularly for certain muscle groups that's why it gets a little murky because those recommendations would be most affected for things that are involved in a lot of compound exercises so you know the tricep bicep and so on that could be scaled downward while the muscle groups that like for the VL for example the vastest lateralis is getting a whole bunch of direct volume where you probably not going to scale it because of the fact that the vast majority of the studies are just counting it as one and then rightfully so because it's going to be one in the leg press and the leg extension if that makes sense so it'll be muscle specific and that's why I can't give like a for sure you can scale it down for every muscle type deal but it's a wide enough range that usually you can come to decent conclusion with some experimentation absolutely and you make a good point about experimentation find what works for you and then do that um very briefly can we just quickly touch on volume landmarks maintenance volume minimum effective volume maximum adaptive volume and maximum recoverable volume yeah so these were originally coined by Dr Mike is Rell where it's essentially the volume that's needed in order to maintain the amount of gains you have that would be maintenance volume so that's probably around you know three to five um a decent amount of evidence for three but those three studies three set per week studies uh were generally in people that just did a 12we program and then drop down their volume so that's only if you consider a trained individual a person who's been training for three months right and then you have minimum effective volume so the amount of volume the lowest amount of volume needed in order to make some gains and then you have maximum adaptive volume which is the maximum amount of sets that you can do and get the most gains so the amount of sets needed in order to get the most gains and then you have maximum recoverable volume which is that extra volume that you can do while still maintaining performance so you can technically do more volume than would give you the most gains but still recover and still continue to add a little bit of load but it doesn't necessarily get you more muscle mass so those are generally the volume landmarks there and um I think and then the diminishing returns volume is that a new indicator from from yourself or is that still coming with your proposed indicators like maximum growth for given volume and a maximum growth potential yeah so those are two that I came up with maximum growth for a given volume volume and maximum growth potential and the reason I I found those useful is because they're talking more about growth as opposed to talking about volume so the reason why the volume landmarks can sometimes get confusing for people is because they change with different context so if you do less frequency for example let's say you train one time per week your maximum adaptive volume your maximum recoverable all those are going to change based on that specific frequency so you can only look at the maximum you can only look at the volume landmarks within the context of your given program the exercises that you're doing the volumes that you're doing and the frequency that you're doing all of those things are baked into that equation even rest periods and so on but maximum growth potential and maximum growth at a given volume gives you a theoretical how much growth am I actually going to get from whatever the case may be so a really good example of this is let's say sleep if you sleep more you could potentially increase your maximum growth potential right the amount of growth that you can get or the maximum amount of growth that you can get but you can also at the same time decrease your maximum adaptive volume you can do less volume and get the same gains potentially and the amount you can grow total is also higher so it allows you to adapt things to even variables outside of set volume you mentioned sleep as a factor what are some other factors affecting muscle growth yes so you'll get you know sleep you'll get just general recovery so making sure that you're not stressed there's protein so making sure you're getting adequate protein there's calories so how many calories are you consuming are you at maintenance are you in a surplus and so on so all of those things can affect your maximum growth potential and they could even mod ulate what you can do volume wise so if you're not getting adequate protein if you're not getting adequate sleep if you're not getting adequate calories and so on that changes your volume landmarks and it changes your growth potential so having those two to play with in terms of conceptually I think is useful and then maximum growth at a given volume allows you to essentially say all right I'm not necessarily trying to maximize or even if I am it's allows you to see whether the exercises you're using is what is giving you the most bang for your buck so let's say we go back to that seated hamstring curl example if you do a seated ham if you're only doing three sets for the whole week and you're only worried about hamstring growth the maximum growth that the given volume of three sets would be higher with the seated hamston curl than the lying hamston curl so now you have something where you can say all right I can actually choose different exercises and give myself a conceptual landmark of how much growth I'm going to get at this given volume using the exercises of choice so basically it just expands the vocabulary that you can use while quickly telling yourself or an individual what they can expect and why you're making that decision am I getting the most growth for a given volume am I getting the most growth uh potential so am I maximizing all those variables and which variables modulate those things absolutely and um in terms of the Practical takeaways so still 10 to 20 sets per muscle group per week but then how many um sets per muscle group per session yeah I generally don't like to go above nine so basically if you're going to try to maximize the growth for a given muscle I'd like to train it at least two times per week with no more than nine sets per session and that includes in indirect sets as one so that I think is a a pretty good heuristic usually I won't even go above you know six or seven for a given muscle group within the session but I think nine is a pretty decent Rule and so if you go 9 time 2 that's 18 that's the higher range so two times per week but then if you see that you know your recovery capability and just like your I call it like session RP so like how you feel toward the end of the session when you're doing that last exercise and if you're giving all of that juice if you end up doing a higher set number for that session and you don't feel like you're able to get that same level of energy and getting a lot of productive sets then you can increase frequency obviously and then try that out but as a good general rule I'd say yeah nine as a cap per session and 20 at the higher and for the vast majority of individuals for most muscle groups but like we were talking about earlier there's definitely room for some specialization and so on absolutely and on that specialization note um why do you think uh that individual variability is often missed especially online why do you think individual variability what it is often missed um especially online like with cookie cutter programs and people just saying do this with this why why do you think it's missed yeah I think there's probably two reasons one is because individual variability is actually really hard to research so if you read uh I think the lead author is Zack Robinson but it could be a different lead author but it's it's his paper basically talking about how to actually get at individual differences in research and it it's really really hard the study designs necessary in order to actually get at that question are hard to do and often sometimes impossible to do so the it goes back to earlier in our conversation where how can we sort of fill the void we can either make really strong claims about how to individualize or we can go as cookie cutter as possible and make really strong claims and not worry about individualization at all and obviously those two camps would be both incorrect you you sort of find a middle ground where all right here General heuristics here's what the evidence says and I'll modulate things for myself experiment while also just realizing that you know you could be wrong but directionally if things are going well don't stop that train right I don't care if I'm doing something that is not necessarily you know the most evidence-based if that's even a thing if it's working and if I'm growing don't stop that train because it's way worse to try to optimize things when things are going well and end up in a place where you're not even sure what the heck is going on so stick with something if it's working it would be my two cents there absolutely if it if it's not broken don't fix it yeah for sure what are uh some of the best practical takeaways you can list for people I know it's a very broad question but just off the top of your head well you say some of the best practical Tech yeah uh I think just making sure that most of your sets are pretty close to failure so you know within that 3 to zero range so for R I think making sure you do uh moderate amount of volume start on the lower end try to milk those gains see how you feel and then experiment upwards I think is a useful heuristic instead of the opposite where start at really high volume and then you know uh that you might end up in a place where especially as a beginner you're sort of spinning your wheels I think making sure that you have a program that is relatively flexible that allows for you to if you miss a day to pick things up is a really big one for people who are trying to find issues or or trying to find that level of consistency where they have super nice programs you know they actually look really good good but the way they're structured makes it so that if they miss a day then it kind of throws everything off while if you have even slightly less frequency or you have more full body days and so on then you allow for some leeway and that allows you to stay on track which is the biggest variable that's something that I see often in people that are really really passionate where they create the perfect looking program but not necessarily the perfect program for execution and then the the honestly people undervalue outside the gym so making sure that you really covet those things that you know will be good for growth making sure you get adequate sleep making sure that you don't get into too many online fights and increase your cortisol and lose gains because you're worrying about Minor Details that are really not going to affect your training so I think the biggest thing that I always go back to is how is this whenever you consume something online or whenever you're trying to create your training how is this actually going to affect outcomes and how much does it matter for you or the individual you're working with and often times people miss the forest for the trees so just focus on the big rocks while making adjustments on the smaller rocks in the cases where it's warranted and not tinkering on the outside and jumping from program to program constantly because you're trying to look for sort of the best thing absolutely Yeah you mentioned a lot of practical takeaways and that's fantastic and I hope that the listeners gain a lot of insight from from all of that an interesting one you mentioned is not making it sustainable and then also not jumping and I think a lot of especially you mentioned new lifters might even have a really cool program a really good one but if they miss a day the whole program goes out the window or it's not like they can't pick it back up so that's a really cool piece of advice there what would you say is the most practical or some of the best practical takeaways for experienced lifters like what are those summer things that can give the experienced guys like that eagling of an of an edge yeah with more experience people it ends up often being more trial and error and them really listening to their own bodies at least from my experience where often times I think especially with experienced guys in the evidence-based Community they look at evidence that shows neutral effect and think that it doesn't matter at all where I would say that for those people in particular that's where they can play the most in terms of really trying to hammer either form or modulate programming variables in a way that can have them continue to progress so for example let's just say Tempo I think that it would be it's a very common Trope that it matters very very little and I think you know generally speaking I think that it's not a variable that people should you know overly focus on but using tempo as a tool can actually be super useful and I found it to be useful in a particular exercise or or given exercise where I I do think even though there's not evidence there that you can milk more gains by finding the right tempo for a given exercise even if it's not because you get more hypertrophy for a given set but because you can consistently do it and find that mind muscle connection with the uh with the given muscle and stay injury-free with that exercise because you found that Groove with particular Temple so my advice would be to play in those areas where the evidence is neutral and find those tenants that work for you for either the given exercise or programming and so on and what do you see as the next big trends uh or areas of research in muscle growth and exercise science the next big Trend there's a lot of stuff in terms of like technologically that would be you know super cool in terms of we're getting better and better at measuring muscle protein synthesis we're getting better and better at measuring proteins that are related to anabolism so I think more and more quickly we're going to see some candidate proteins that are potentially really good and abolic markers so that's from like a research side of things but from a practical side of things I'm not sure that I see you know super strong Trends from uh this will change the game standpoint as it relates to training I think often we we look for that stuff but I I would just be pretty surprised but by the same token maybe AI will uh allow that to take off where you get sort of personalized you know biof feedback that allows you to actually see how much anabolism that you're getting in real time but yeah I don't think I have any super super strong candidates for what will be sort of the next big thing other than I think that we're getting better and better at just simply doing the studies that are the necessary Next Step while earlier on there was It was kind of the Wild West in terms of especially when we were a really young field there were a lot of you know differing viewpoints on what even volume quantification is and so on so you see a lot of older studies that did stuff that's kind of a head scratcher like stopping sets well short of failure in order to equate for work and so on we like oh man like how are we going to take any practical takeaways from this study so I think think just putting our foot on the pedal and slowly you know allowing those bolts to rise while answering the necessary Next Step will be a really cool Frontier I think the the biggest thing proximally that that might be something that we really parse in research is when certain muscles grow in different positions and how they grow regionally in different positions and why they grow regionally in different positions is probably the most proximate Frontier that I see at least in the hypy literature it's like all right with this range of motion which which exercise and which position will grow the glute better versus the quad and so on and then positionally within the muscle proximal mid distal when is that going to grow in different exercises I think we're going to get better and better at maybe knowing why but at least knowing if in terms of actual outcomes between exercises because it does seem to be something that is on a lot of people's radar so that's maybe one of the most uh imminent uh changes that we'll probably see and you're gatekeeping the rest no I'm kidding there are actually some things that I've seen in uh the reason why I was talking about the molecular stuff there's some cool stuff that I've seen that I can't actually talk about because it wasn't my lab that's so I I don't want to uh shine light on it before they present their findings but yeah it's uh there's some cool stuff on on that side of things well that's exciting we'll have to have you or some of the um your colleagues on that paper on the podcast to talk about them when they publish yeah for sure very exciting and then um yeah in closing off uh what advice or parting words of wisdom do you have for our listeners who are looking to embark on their own journey of U muscle growth and health I know you've talked a lot about all these things I did mention that you might have to reiterate reiterate it at the end but just for um continuity sake what are your uh closing thoughts yeah I'd say the biggest thing if somebody was starting on the journey or even honestly for somebody that's you know in the middle of the journey is find someone who embodies what you sort of enjoy in terms of communication style and and what they know how they know it and then really allow them to either coach you or Mentor you I think that's honestly in terms of something that I didn't cover a really really good unlock where you can have really good conversations you can have a perspective of being coached and basically allow yourself to go through their mistakes way more quickly by by having a person that is ahead of you that has gone through all those trials and tribulations so a mentor I think is something that I would not undervalue at all often times people worry about the price tag there but I think it's well worth the price in the vast majority of cases to just find somebody that's ahead of you that can help you get through all the stuff that you would have got wrong for years so in terms of practical advice I think that's probably the most practical especially for a beginner I wish I had someone that very early on was just like you don't have to bench six times a week you know things things that I mean I just did absurd things when I was uh in high school where I just thought more is better and I was wrestling at the time too so I just you know accumulated some injuries and whatnot just CU I was training like an idiot so there's definitely tons and tons of things that can be learned from somebody that's either one step or five steps above you just try to create a community or at least have somebody where you can bounce ideas off of and is an individual that you respect and is even killed and so on I think that's probably the the quickest fast track to leveling up your knowledge and leveling up your abilities absolutely I think that's fantastic advice and if people are looking to level up their knowledge uh through you how would they how would be best to find you yeah so the two places are slowly on YouTube I put out stuff but pretty slowly but I'm trying to get a little bit better at putting it out right now it's probably more like once a month but I'm really trying to sort of build a foundation for people with my YouTube videos and then Instagram I'm pretty active on Instagram so those would be the two places to find me and your handles oh yeah Daniel Plotkin just my name so Daniel Plotkin on YouTube and Just Daniel Plotkin Daniel Plotkin on Instagram fantastic Daniel thank you so so much for your time I really really appreciate it and all the best with your U doctorate research and uh all the other papers that I see are your names always on don't know how you have time for all of them but thank you so much for all your contributions to science and for all the ones to come really appreciate it and uh best of luck with everything and I can't wait to uh see the next uh um thing that you come up with and out your lab and everything and uh thanks again thank you man 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 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 bigger stronger and better