Aerobic exercise may be destroying your body, weightlifting can save it – Charles Poliquin

Bulletproof Radio. A state of high performance.

You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today's cool fact of the day is about the largest muscle in your body. If you don't know what it is, it's actually your gluteus maximus. As they say, baby got back. But what's the smallest muscle? This is one you probably haven't really thought about, so listen carefully. It's called the stapedius muscle and of course it's in your inner ear, which is why you're listening carefully. It's about five hundredths of an inch, and it stabilizes the smallest bone in your body, called the stapes, or stapes, I have no idea. These Latin words, I have no idea how to pronounce it, but it looks like staples without the l. And it also helps protect you from loud noises or even the sound of your own voice. Believe it or not, I believe it's absolutely possible to train that muscle, too. It's just hard. There's a couple technologies that you do that. But we're not going to talk about ear muscles today because we got some bigger things to deal with. That's kind of a bit foreshadowing. Our guest is today. But before we talk about today's amazing guest, who I've wanted to interview for, like, years, I went into talk to you about fat water. If you haven't heard about fat water, this is the brand new bulletproof beverage. We'll ship it to you with free shipping. And it's a bottled water with zero sugar, sweetened with things like stevia. But it contains brain octane oil. So you get these micro droplets of brain octane that go directly to energy without affecting insulin or blood sugar in any way, shape or form. It's a really delicious thing. It's something we've worked on for years to be able to get a small amount of fat to stay suspended. It's also got a bunch of B vitamins in it. So the idea is it helps you burn fat instead of sugar. It tastes really good. And when you just don't want to drink another glass of water or another coffee, it's a cool opportunity. There's lemon, pineapple, and grapefruit, and it's awesome. Try it@Bulletproof.com. if you haven't heard about the benefits of camel milk, it's totally worth your time to look into this as something you could add to your bulletproof diet. Camel milk is something that I learned about from Walid, the owner of Desert Farms, who's the largest seller of camel milk out there. Camel milk got its start in the autism community because it's non reactive the way cow milk is. And now it's just become one of the new superfoods that's out there. One of the reasons is that it's full of lactoferrin, which is a natural substance that's present in mother's milk that has antibacterial, antiviral, anti parasitic, anti cancer properties. And it doesn't have lactose or lactoglobulin, the stuff that makes lactose intolerant people unable to process milk from cows. Desert Farm's camel milk is also organic. It's tested for heavy metals and actually 900 different contaminants. It is keto certified, GMO free, has no bovine growth hormone or anything weird like that and is pasture raised. So it's all grass fed. Desert farms is offering a really good deal for bulletproof listeners because they were at the bulletproof conference and we got to be friends. They're giving away a free bottle of camel milk for you. All you have to do is pay for shipping and handling. Just head over to desertfarms. Just head over to desertfarms.com bulletproof to get your free bottle of camel milk right now. That's desertfarms.com bulletproof Today's guest I'm so excited about this is Charles Poliquin. Charles is a world renowned strength and conditioning educator and coach and he's helped some of the world's most elite athletes completely kick ass with hundreds of medals, wins and personal bests in 17 different sports. He's worked with the champions, Olympians, athletes, NHL, NFL, written a few books, one of which you're going to learn about today and hundreds of articles about his techniques. Decades of global training and he runs strength sensi a valuable online resource around like training performance for athletes and coaches. And he's also just on a personal note, he's one of the first biohackers out there. When you look at the world of biohacking, there's the strength and conditioning side, there's the nutrition side, there's the medical side, there's the crazy biofeedback, there's military, special ops and resources and all sorts of things. We're doing free divers, Wim hof, kind of polar bear people. What Charles has been doing for longer than most of those people is looking at the details. The things that happen inside your body, things that happen outside your body, how the signal you send to your muscles changes your body and Come up with things that were absolutely pissing off the world that he said in the 80s that have been proven today to be true. So, Charles, it's an honor to have you on. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much, David.

So I'm looking at you now on the YouTube video version of this, and you, you're about 55 now.

55, exactly, yes.

Can I see your biceps? Look at that, you guys completely ripped. You've got about 16 years on me. So I'm hoping that I look as good as you or heck, halfway as good as you when I'm 16, given I probably don't train nearly as much as you do. Why do you focus on maintaining muscle mass as you age like this? What's important about that?

I mean, as early as the 80s in Boston, they did quite a few studies at Tufts where they looked at what could predict aging. And the number one anti aging parameter that you could like is actually muscle mass. And the number two was strength, right? So it outshined cholesterol, high blood pressure, resting heart rate, max heart rate, and all these other factors. The thing is that there's a phenomenon called sarcopenia, which is death of muscles and we lose strength. But one phenomenon now more studied by the Italians is actually dynapenia, loss of strength. So there's a lot of exciting research now on actually peptides that would slow down dynapenia and sarcopenia. So one of the ways to stay young is actually how much muscle mass can you retain and how much strength. So for the more you train, the less you age, basically. And then people say, okay, big muscle, big thing you have to consider is that when you have a large muscle mass, you also have more insulin inside your space. And insulin, insulin receptor sites. And then we know that insulin is the hormone of aging. That's what you're all about. So if you have a lot of muscle mass, your ability to control your glucose, control your insulin is enhanced. And things like in the 80s, ladies will bring hips, bones and whatever, but if you have strength, you have more balance. There's actually a very good study done on what was most important in Parkinson's. Patient. I was consulted on the right protocol, but they asked, should they do balance exercise, should they do aerobic work, or should they do balance and weight training or balance and aerobic work? And it was one of what I call a no shit Sherlock study because the results showed that balance and strength training helped. But. And I told him, I said aerobic work will worsen the patients. And it did And I said, you don't need to do the study. But he says, no, we need to. I said, okay. So they did this study and one of the problems with aerobic work is that it oxidizes the body. So if you look at studies on long term athletes, the ones with the less committed ability are actually the ones that have done the most aerobic work in their lifestyle. So cross country skiers, rowers, if you compare their cognitive ability in their 70s compared to a weightlifter or a wrestler or sport volleyball, their brains are sharper. Okay. So I mean, I always tell my students we're designed to throw a rock at a rabbit, not chase it. You know, we don't feed ourselves aerobically. So I think people are. Now, there's been a change in attitude towards strength training. And now we know, for example, to prevent osteopenia, which is lost to bone, strength training is very valuable. And the Finns are probably the best researchers I know.

Now, you said a couple things that I want to dig in on. One of them is definitely around the peptides and we'll get there. But the other thing you said was just that aerobic exercise isn't going to be good for your brain. I've seen some studies that kind of make me mad around telomeres that say if you're doing 50 mile runs, these ultra long distance runners who I believe are kind of beating the crap out of their bodies, they get really long telomeres. Some interesting anti aging stuff that Bill Andrews has talked about. I am in your camp firmly after many years of doing both cardio and weights. I do occasional very heavy stuff that bends my bones as much as I can. I have machines that bend my bones to cause bone density and I measure it on DEXA and all that kind of stuff. But what about the studies that say, like aerobic exercise does have anti aging. Can you sort of tell me your perspective on those?

I haven't read those, so I'm not going to comment. But in my, I've seen plenty that show that. For example, we did Sport Canada did research on osteopenia in female olympians for the 92 Olympics. And what they found is that there was also a direct correlation between mileage of aerobic work and loss to bone. And that's been confirmed by other groups of researchers around the world. So maybe it helps with telomeres, but if you don't have a hip to support yourself on. So I think it's, you know, I grew up in the 60s and it was, you know, Cooper and aerobic was great and blah blah, blah. And then they suddenly pulled a 180 on us on that. I think that it's then if you look at mitochondrial damage or even gut lining damage from a robotic cork, the results are not promising. So you gotta look at the problem with science is that you have to take one variable and that's the one you measure. And you can't look at everything. But also in real life you can't look at the world through a straw. So this may help this, but at expense of what? Right. So I'm not. That's why I prefer studies on long term athletes and then say, okay, let's compare a weightlifter to a wrestler. Let's compare whatever. I mean I did.

Oh, go ahead. I did a lot of looking at this just for Hetztrong, the new book on mitochondria that's really meant for the brain, just through the lens of what's going to grow the most mitochondria. And there's a set of research that says lifting heavy is going to get that for you. And then there's a set of research that says walking for 20 minutes a day is going to get that for you. But not running, not the intense stuff. So the recommendations are like move a little bit every day, which is going to stimulate that. And I use the bulletproof vibe, whole body vibration because it's a little faster than going for a walk and you get stimulation there. But then lifting heavy. In my case, my goal isn't to be as muscular as you, but to be muscular or I guess the New York Times called me almost muscular, which is from an anti aging perspective, I think, where I want to be. That was a compliment, I hope. But the goal is that. And that once a week or Even once every 10 or 15 days seems to be enough as a non athlete. Correct. Do you think that I might be under training on strength if I'm maintaining the muscle mass I'm looking for?

The thing is that I would probably increase the volume to maybe twice a week.

Twice a week. Wow.

Yeah. Because the thing is that. Are you trying to look at Corona and the Barbarian? No, but the thing I would say is that it would be better to have a short workout twice a week. So let's say 20 minutes twice a week and 40 minutes once, once every 10 days. It's like learning.

I only do 15 minutes once every 10 days, but I'm doing it with computer driven feedback equipment. So I'm basically using the arx, which I'm fighting against a winch. So it's essentially like isometrics against a moving plane. So you get really rapid muscle exhaustion. I don't think I could do a 40 minute workout on that machine. It would kill me.

Okay, but that's why I would not. But you may want to up your frequency.

Okay, I'll play with that now. And I'm in my mid-40s. Let's talk about peptides. You said there's some new stuff about peptides. I put on 12 pounds of muscle in the last month with basically three workouts, which is unbelievable to me. But I'm using SARMs, the selective androgen receptor modulators. Are those the peptides you're talking about or something else?

Well, peptide and the SARM is a different thing, but as far as I'd say compounds. The SARMs, that's another thing that's very exciting. Like the RAD140 seems to be very efficient.

I haven't even tried RAD140. I'm doing 4033 and 50156. By the way, for everyone listening, there's a blog post on Bulletproof about the different selective androgen receptor modifiers. They're all research chemicals. Some of them are probably banned by sporting bodies, but they seem to work really well. And the reason I did it was because one of them gives you a 50% increase in mitochondria. Like, I'll take that thing anyway, just some people, I don't want to be too technical without defining terms, so go ahead.

Well, the thing is, for example, there's a peptide that I just got the paper where they took. Okay, it's an animal model, but he on purpose damaged the sciatic nerve and then injected his peptide called Cortagen. And there was regeneration of the nerve with that peptide. The interesting thing is that one of the reasons why we lose muscle mass is the damage done to the nerves as we age. So that compound, in my opinion, is the way to go. So last week I had a conversation with Jean Francois Tremblay at the University of Montreal. He's going to do a PhD thesis. And he was asking me, what protocol do you recommend? And I said, well, go to retirement community, have people lift weights and inject methyrostatic water and add the other ones and see what it does. So apparently that's what he's going to do for his PhD. And so Denpenia is now the word in anti aging in my field.

Dan Pina.

Diana. Like dynamic.

Oh, Diana. Okay, cool. Okay.

The loss of dynamics the loss of strength.

Oh, sorry. I heard a glitzer Dan Pina's been a guest on the show. I'm like, he's like a gazillionaire in the uk. Sorry, he completely lost me. He does anti aging stuff, but okay, so this idea of loss of strength versus loss of mass. So being bulky and weak is actually probably worse than being less bulky and strong.

Well, one of the things is that you can't separate the nervous system from the muscles. So if you lift weights and get bulky, your nervous system gets a benefit. But probably the ideal combination for anti aging would actually be something that works at the nerve level and something that works at the muscle level. So I'm quite excited about that. And then I think in the next few years we're going to see more and more of papers that will stick Dynapenia and Saclopenia together.

That is fascinating. When I did this thing with the SARMs, just because this is top of mind for me, I have a computer that's tracking my max. Like the max I can lift on just the big four movements. You know, squats and presses and things like that. Pull downs. I did at least 12% higher on my max, and on one of them 20% higher, just over the course of three weeks by increasing mitochondrial density. I was completely blown away. That really exceeded my expectations. And my max before was reasonable for a guy my size. Not insane, but not weak by a long shot. What would a listener today who wanted to reverse their muscle loss, maybe without going to SARMs, or wanted to increase their strength, what is the fastest way that they could go about getting even some kind of gains like that? Do they need to go to SARMs, or is this just a training thing?

Okay, I would say training would have more of an impact, but the SARMs in conjunction with training would be two plus two equals five. Okay, okay. So it has a multiplying effect. But I think if you just did the syringe and sat in the couch, it wouldn't be a two, it would be a point two. Right. So you do need. Okay, so you do need that stimulus. It's like basically you have a fire, and if you blow air on the fire, the fire grows. So the sign would be the amount of wind that goes on the fire. But you still have to light up the flame. So adding wind will not do much for it. And obviously MK177, that shows promise. So I think in the. This is theoretical, but I've done a lot of stuff theoretically in a practical way that Showed up to be true 30 years later.

But that's why I like you.

Yeah. So if you put a gun to my head and said, man, give me what you think is your best guess, I would say you would do two weeks of, let's say, eight to 12 and change completely the exercise, change completely the speed and the rest interval.

When you say 8 to 12, you mean 8 to 12 reps, stacking the weight up, or for people listening, 8.

To 12 reps, where you reach muscle failure.

Okay, okay. So a single set of eight to 12 until you can't do another one. All right.

Or multiple. But. But the point is that you work at that intensity zone, which would be about 70 to 78% of your match. And then another two weeks, I would change the serum or change the peptide and then go ahead and eat like four to six reps. And then next month, next month, start with another peptide and keep going like that. Because I think with these things is that there's the law of diminishing returns. And then one thing I tell people all the time is that strength training is like learning a foreign language. So you need repetition. So if I say word to you in a foreign language once, you're not going to remember. What research shows is you need to repeat that at least six times. But if you do, let's say a Swedish lesson every 10 days, the odds that you grow your Swedish will be low. So there's such a thing as frequency. But if you're doing Swedish lessons seven times a day, you say, my brain can't handle it. So there's a need for rest, there's a need for stimulus. And then the thing is that when you learn a foreign language, how do you know that you master the language is when you're funny in it, Right? Because, for example, the sentence, did he really say it? If I type that on an email, it doesn't say, did he really say it? Or did they really say it? Or did you really say it? So just by putting emphasis on one of the words, the sentence doesn't mean the same thing at all, even though it's the same words. Right. So with strength training, you have to put emphasis on different things. So that's how you build up your training vocabulary. And I think the peptides would be the strength training would be the vocabulary, and the peptides could be grammar. Wow.

What a great analogy. That's cool, Charles.

Thank you.

All right, so I think that answer for listeners is basically mix up your strength training a couple times a week, and if you did Decide to use SARMs. You mentioned several there. I think I covered all, but I haven't talked about cortagen on the blog post about SARMs. Have you written about SARMs? Are they in your new book?

No, but I just hired last night that guy Tremblis from University of Montreal to start writing on peptides and slime stream.

Okay, so where can people find that stuff? And just if you like bulletproof radio, you've been listening for a while and you like the people. Charles is like, OG really knows more about biohacking and not the. There's definitely a bodybuilding or a muscle mass component to what he does, but there's body composition and performance are actually more behind what he does than just the muscle building stuff we're talking about now. So if you're not following him, what's your URL or where should people go to get your newsletter? I read it. It's really good. Strengthsensei.com Strengthsensei.com all right.

And then, you know, I'm 55 now, so obviously my goal is a lot different than when I was 25. Like Mohammed Ali said, if at 45 you're the same guy when you were 18, you wasted quite a bit of your life. So I have different goals, but I think that the peptides are very exciting, especially some of the stuff to regenerate collagen cartilage, like the PC157, the BCP157, the TB500. I've seen a lot of my students for a reason XYZ get torn suddenly with their meniscus and they go on peptide therapy and then their lives change because they can finally get out of the pain. And I mean, there's one of the things I really like, unfortunately they stopped making it in Austria was acto vegan, which was basically. How do you spell that?

What is it?

A C, T, O, V, E, a G, A N or V, I, N? It's a blood veo blood extract. And it's pretty much everybody that's famous in the world of soccer or track and field has had active injections and this stuff will regenerate cartilage and I think swear by it because my doctor is from Luxembourg and he prescribed it to me. And on my right shoulder it completely generated the cartilage and it's. But now only Euphrania makes it, so it's a bit harder to get. It's your creativity to get it.

That'S interesting. I'll have to do some research on that, by the way. For you if you're listening and you didn't catch the that all of these compounds will be in the show notes on the bulletproof website and there's a full transcript you can read as well. So if you want to go back and take notes on this, I will.

Send you a picture of the product. I can send that to you.

Oh cool. That's really helpful. I'll have to find a way to get some and give it a shot myself. Now I think that there's probably some discomfort from people listening. We're talking about using some research grade chemicals, things that have been proven in labs but we don't have 25 years of data to show that they're not going to make you grow new eyeballs or cancer cells or whatever else. But you have athletes using them. You've obviously used some of these things yourself. I've used them because I looked at the risk reward and the reward is pretty big and the risk looks pretty low.