Top Tips from the Trainer of Superheroes – Magnus Lygdbäck : 929

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Formerly Bulletproof Radio.

A state of high performance.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. I should mention we're recording this in person at the Beverly Hilton, which is like the most storied hotel in Hollywood where the Golden Globes happen and things like that. So we're in the middle of Hollywood. This is where the biohacking conference is every year. So that's my favorite place. Thanks for coming in.

I'm so excited to be here.

Today's guest is a well known trainer from Sweden who has probably the hardest to pronounce name of any guest who's ever been on the show. Magnus Lugdaback. Did I say it right?

You said it perfectly all right.

I studied actually, guys, for eight hours with my Swedish wife in order to learn how to say that properly, so.

Well, you did well.

So does that mean I get like bonus personal trainer points or something?

Sure.

A typical short Swedish response. I appreciate that.

It would be interesting to do a session or two with you.

It would be. You'd probably kick my ass. So you're famous because, I mean, You've got a YouTube channel and you've trained Ben Affleck, Katy Perry, Ben, all kinds of crazy Hollywood celebrities and you have the Magnus method. So I wanted to go deep with you about how you got to be there and what you do to make these people who are really high performers, like musicians, artists, actors, have the worst life ever in terms of travel and late nights and bad food. And so you're overcoming all that with training because they have to look superhuman. I wonder how you do it because I'm kind of lazy and I just want to learn from someone who already did the work. What makes you qualified to even go, hey, Katie, I'd like to show you how to have abs or whatever she wanted.

Well, you know, it all started me doing a lot of sports growing up back home in Sweden. I've been doing this for 21 years plus now. And I started working with all these athletes after my career was over as a hockey player and I got certified as a trainer and I started seeing all these athletes. And when you train with a hockey player or a soccer player, you look at them very sport specifically, what do you need? And then I started getting all these actors and musicians, pop artists. And then I started getting all these actors and musicians, pop artists. One day a guy walked into the gym and he was Max Martin. He's the most successful songwriter and producer in history. So I started working with him and he started taking me on his trips and I got an insight in the life of an artist. We would travel the world and, you know, he would record all these pop artists and I started working with them and I realized that no one was looking at these artists like they were athletes.

They are though, right?

100%. It was called being a celebrity trainer and a name that I'm, you know, it's attached to mine now and I don't love it, but it is what it is. It's not who you train, it's how you train. But so I started breaking down, what do they need? If you got Britney Spears and she's doing a 90 minute show in three and a half minute intervals, how should she work out in the gym? So I started adapting the training to the goal and to the client. And just by looking at them like they were athletes, their sport was singing and performing. Then I started traveling with them and I realized that, oh my Lord, I'm seeing someone an hour in the gym, but here we are going from time zone to time zone, hotel room to radio, promo, tv, sound check show, airplane, and on and on. I didn't have the tools.

You know, that reminds me of. So Nikki Bella was on the show, you know, celebrity and also professional wrestler. And she described exactly that life. But it was very similar to what you'd hear even from like Third Eye Blind. You know, I've worked with those guys, been backstage with them. They get beat to death by the road, plus all the breathing that they're doing. And I never paid much attention to that until Steven Jenkins just said, now here's all my breathing that's planned out.

Ahead for a show.

And I was blown away because it's a different kind of like endurance athletics with minimal recovery. Almost like doing like a endurance event every day and just traveling around doing that. So you ground down. I wanted to ask you. So I mean, here we are, you've got, you know, these nice big guns and everything, and you're training these people to look really good. But everything I know about training says that recovery is as important as training. And these guys are minimizing recovery. Like, how do you get around that?

Well, when you film a movie, it's really hard because then you have like 14 hour days when it's all in, it's all physical, and then you have a short turnaround that is a challenge, let me tell you. So you do whatever you can. But same thing with an artist. When you're on tour, it's all about finding those spots. When should I be eating? Can we get a break here to do some. Get an hour at the spa with some ice bath and a sauna.

So you recommend that to your clients as well as us.

And you know, for me it's about creating good habits as well. Let's say when you're on tour, your schedule is created for you to take you from city to city, to do radio promo and to do shows. And there's nothing in there that is about you and your wellness.

None at all?

Nothing at all. Nothing to really look. What do you need? So if Katy Perry's got a show for 20,000 people at 8pm, I look at when should she be waking up, what type of workout should she be doing during the day to optimize the performance at night? What is she doing three hours before a show, one hour before the show, or even 20 minutes? So traditionally it's all been, you know, warming up the voice, doing a sound check, sitting in the locker room. But I'm big about looking at the details. What do I do to optimize myself to perform? So when I get on stage, how do I know that I've done everything I can physically and mentally to be at my best? And what do you do after when you get off stage?

I think you're supposed to go out for drinks and make out with fans. At least that's what I've mostly seen from the rock stars I've hung with.

Well, we'll do that for three weeks straight.

I know, right?

And see how you wrecked. So that's, you know, when I got thrown into that world, I realized I need more tools. So that's when I got into the lifestyle coaching, nutrition and, and really starting working on how I can help someone with structure and optimizing in good habits, out with bad habits. The training's just a little part of it.

I love that you're saying that. I went through this period when I weighed 300 pounds when I was younger and it's all about the training. So I said, I'm going to go on a low fat, low calorie diet. I'll work out an hour and a half a day, six days a week, half weights, half cardio, and I'm going to do it no matter what. And 18 months later, I was still the same weight. I was stronger, but I was still fat.

Yeah.

And it drove me nuts.

But cardio, 200 calories burnt on, on, on the treadmill that 30 minutes. And they will not, you know, that cinnamon roll that is 850 calories.

They don't match.

No.

You can't pay for pizza on the treadmill.

No. Comes down to nutrition.

Yeah.

When it's about weight loss, I love.

Hearing a celebrity trainer say that, because if someone had just told me that when I was 16, I would have just focused on my food instead of just beating myself up in the gym. Right. So how do you know? Or how would someone listening know? Okay, I want to change my diet, but I still should train some amount. So for a mere mortal who maybe doesn't have to look like Gal Gadot, don't have to be one of them or something. What's a normal training frequency?

Well, let me start by addressing training and nutrition. I always get the question, how much is training? How much is nutrition? Is it 50, 50, 60, 40? Just know that you shouldn't even talk about nutrition and training in the same sentence. You need to get on top of your nutrition and on top of your training, both in a balanced way. So what I would recommend to someone who wants to start that journey is to not be too hard on themselves, because we tend to go from 0 to 100 or going too extreme, and then you know, you're good for a week and then you fall off the wagon and you set yourself up for failure. So a system that I use a lot is my 17 out of 20 method, which is bulletproof. There's no, you cannot fail. You never fail. You don't need to feel like a failure ever. Ever. So if you eat 20 meals, I want 17 out of 20 to be on point.

Cool.

3 out of 20. Enjoy life.

Even just like eating complete garbage or just a little bit.

Yes.

See, I have a hard time with that. I used to do that. Cheat days, Right? Kind of a similar thing.

Treat days.

Yeah. Or treat days. And I'll still do that, but on a treat day, fine, I'll have some extra sugar that day, But I'm not going to eat like the Twinkies. I'm not gonna eat hydrogenated fat. I'm not gonna eat gluten because I know I'm gonna have cravings for three days afterwards, and it's gonna lower my energy. So, like, how do I feel? Okay. I'm like a Gucci day.

I'm like you, but most people aren't, so.

Okay, fair point.

What I'm trying, what I've realized after 20 years plus is that you need to come up with a system that. Where people don't feel like they're failing as soon as they make a mistake. So if people really want that Twinkie, they can have it. It's not going to be the greatest thing. Sugar is terrible for you. And I have, you know, it messes with me for days. But at least there's a plan. A plan of after that Twinkie that I know that, oh, I need to get back to my 17 clean meals.

So it's not about perfection, because perfectionism kills everything. And a lot of people say I failed on the diet, therefore it's just all Twinkies.

Correct.

And you've gotten rid of that with Magnus Method.

So if you're too extreme, one Twinkie and it's over. Oh, I failed. Same thing with training. If I'm supposed to be training really hard six days a week and I don't have it in me and do five, I failed. So I think that you should start. First of all, look at training holistic. I'm involved in all these extreme makeovers, right? I build these superheroes for the big screen, but I preach balance. And I think that you should look at training from a much more holistic perspective. Look at three things. One, what do I like to do? Number two, what does my body need? Number three, what do I want to master or get better at? Many times those three things are different things. They might be the same. That should create your weekly programming. Okay, so for me, strength training is my number one meditation. Yoga is my number two. I need it. My three is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I don't enjoy it every time, I have to admit, I'm getting my butt kicked. But I love the art form and I love to get better at it. So the beautiful thing about that, once you have those three figured out, you can actually make all those benefit each other. So I can do yoga poses that benefits my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, even strength training that benefits that. So I think that's the way you should approach it.

Okay, so you look to get benefits across multiple goals by just picking this stuff. So it's high return on investment for the minute you spend exercising. It's funny. So I don't have the schedule of Rock Star where it's every night, but I've been through weeks where I'm doing four main stage presentations in different cities. Actually, quite often I would never wake up and do a heavy lift because I want to bring the energy to the audience. I'm not going to waste it on plates or something, but I'm going to go for a walk and do some stretches or meditation or something. So I've got blood flowing But I'm not actually already burning out what I'm planning to share with the audience. Right. Is that kind of a similar recommendation to what you're doing?

Correct. So that lift that session might have been. If you and I would work together, we would probably do that the day before. And then on the day of, we would do something that helps you to take up oxygen. Like a couple of high intensity intervals.

Okay.

Couple of sprints. A couple of sprints.

Okay.

Stretching, opening up, optimizing airflow in the lungs.

Okay. Do you do specific breathing exercises with your clients?

What I do is I work with a lot of isometric exercises to open up your lungs and to line your spine. You see, your spine is a postural muscle. It's always activated. You don't choose to activate it, so you need to work it in a different way. To reprogram it, you need to work isometric. More than six seconds. So I do isometric work on the spine.

Okay.

To reprogram you so you have a better posture and a better airflow.

So when they walk on stage, their posture is perfect. And isometrics. Some people listening may not be into training. So that's when you're pushing against a force that doesn't move. So basically standing against a wall and pushing as hard as you can, knowing it's not going to move.

Correct.

Okay. And so you have people that like, lean back and push their head back against the floor kind of things.

That's one of my favorites.

Okay.

And I think that when me or my clients are traveling, when you're traveling a lot, you can do that. When you're sitting in your seat on a flight as well, Just push back your spine, flatten out your neck. So that's a good one that I recommend. Just to reprogram your spine because we're born this way and we die this way constantly. Got to remind ourselves to be up here.

What kind of gear do celebrities travel with? Do they have resistance bands? Do they have magnets? I have no idea.

Depends. Depends. So we could do workout in here. I'll always find something.

Lamp curls.

Lamp curls. We could do pull ups underneath the table. Can do planks. We can use a cushion to, you know, do stir the pot. I have training bands that I like to send with people.

Okay.

So I have two different kits, like mini bands and super rubber bands that I use a lot.

I find those are really convenient for travel. Because they don't weigh very much.

Correct.

How about blood flow restriction? You ever mess around with that?

I have. What do you Think I tore my bicep a couple years ago, and in my rehab, I did that.

Okay. And I did an episode a while ago on that with the guys from B Strong. And it's. It's really interesting. I mean, you put these bands on and you. You don't. You know, that. That restrict. But don't fully restrict blood flow, and you don't have to have much weight, and you just grow muscle. It's. It's kind of ridiculous.

Yeah. So I'm not an expert when it comes to the science, how backed up we are by science, if it works or not, but a lot of people are swearing by it, and it looks like it. It's really beneficial, and that's good enough for me.

I may or may not have done that yesterday. I was doing a bunch of filming, and also in the morning, I brought my bands and I pumped them up, and for about two days afterwards, there's an inch more blood flow, so at least you're getting a pump. But the science that I've seen shows via something called HIF1alpha, it actually is growing more blood flow, and by changing lactic acid levels, it is growing more muscles. Have you heard of this 70 hard program that's out there? Have you heard of this 70 hard program that's out there?

No.

Oh, man. They're telling you, like, for just 70 days, it's like an hour and a half of exercise and drink a gallon of water and meditate for this and read this. And I look at that like that. That is a recipe for overtraining if I've ever seen one. It's seven days a week. You have to do this stuff.

Seven days a week?

Yeah, just for 70 days straight. It'll change your life. It'll change your life by either blowing out your adrenals or giving you an injury and a joint or a muscle. But there's people who are kind of swearing by it. And I like to talk to a professional trainer about the pros and cons of, like, all right, I'm just gonna go all in there. Instead of 17 out of 20, which is what you teach, it's like, look, just 70 days of doing it, right? After that, I can just go eat pizza again. Pros and cons of that approach?

Well, first of all, they're not giving you any tools to succeed after. Right. That's a problem I have with a lot of these extreme diets and workout plans. They give you absolutely no tools. So the second it's over, what do I do now? So that's one issue. But yeah, to work at seven. We know, we know that you'll get overtrained after seven days a week. Seventy days. I don't do that with my superheroes that I built. I would never do that.

Right.

I spend one hour, five days a week, maybe six during the buildup.

That's still pretty heavy. I mean, these guys are sleeping a ton. They're probably taking testosterone if they need to. They're probably eating tons of protein, probably taking extra amino acids. Like what do you do nutritionally when someone's just pounded it out five days a week for an hour? That would blow me out.

Well, what I do is we don't work the same muscles every day. So I target different muscles every day. And then we allow that muscle group to rest and recover while working on the next one. Supplement wise. Multivitamins B12. I'm a big fan of L Theanine because we know that it can help with lowering the stress hormone, the cortisol.

So the stuff in green tea, just take it before bed or you take it in the morning?

Both.

Both. Okay. So it's good.

The more the better. If you're building a superhero, you know, you. I do it both morning and.

A lot of aminos when you're trying to muscle like that?

Well, yeah, protein or bca, branch chain amino acids, which, which if you eat a lot of food, you, you, you might, you know, you might not have to do that. But I think it's very convenient to have branch chain amino acids or some protein powder with you.

Okay. Plant based protein powder versus whey or animal based protein powders.

What you call, well, the most bioavailable one as we know, whey egg is high vegan. Not as much. But I do think it's interesting now when we're starting to get to a point when. Because you need a vegan protein powder, first of all, you need all the essential amino acids. The whole. You want it to be full protein. So you need to mix vegan protein sources. But we know the quality is not as high. So I do think it's interesting now when we start to play with added BCAAs in vegan protein powders. And as a matter of fact, I'm working on that myself right now on being a vegan. Vegan protein powder with added BCAs.

Okay. But I mean, are you.

I'm not vegan. I'm not vegan. Yeah. I've been challenged a few times to try it for a week, but I'm not really that interested.

I've had a lot of conversations with vegans over their first steak in 20 years. And I'm always honored when that happens. And the look on their face afterwards, like, I can't, I didn't remember how it felt to feel this way. So there's something that happens there. And so I don't want to, you know, go on an anti vegan kick because like I said, I was a vegan for a long time and I get the ethos. But I also want to know if I'm working out five days a week and I'm having one of the gazillion plant based protein powders that says in big letters, plant based. And there's like four animal based protein powders on the bottom shelf that are more expensive. I would buy those because I actually get a higher return per minute of exercise. And so I want people listening to just hear and understand that. And that's not like opinion, it's results based, it's facts. You're seeing that casein versus whey protein.

Well, whey casein is more of a slow release, so it's popular to take at night. I recommend whey over casein.

I would, I would do the same. Casein appears to raise cancer risk, especially in the presence of other, you know, other compounds like aflatoxin, which is actually pretty common in food. Just trace amounts, but it amplifies how bad it is. Whey raises glutathione, but a lot of whey also raises insulin, which is great if you're trying to put on muscle insulin, like growth factor. It's because insulin is a growth factor. Right. So raise insulin so you could lift heavy, have some whey before, have some way after with sugar. Right. Which we're not recommending. And you're going to put muscle on right. Because of insulin, but you might pay for it later. Do you look at longevity like I'm an anti aging guy. Really?

Yes, that's 100%. And there's the balance there as well. So when I look at myself and what I eat and what I do, I look at, I do look at longevity and health, but I also look at what makes me happy.

Well said, because that makes you young.

Because I think happiness probably makes life longer as well.

It does.

And the quality of life should mean something as well. So if someone told me that, you know, you can't have your burrata and your rib eye on a Saturday night with your glass of red, it's going to take a year off your life, I might be okay with that. Yep.

So until that last year.

Yeah. Well, hopefully I've had a lot of good years until then.

I would. I would trade a year of life for many years of ribeyes because they're. They're important.

Yeah. And I don't think that they will shorten your life.

Intermittent fasting. Yay or nay?

I think it's a strategy that works for a lot of people.

Okay.

I think any diet is a strategy.

Okay.

I've seen also how here in Hollywood, how we. A lot of people now have a name for a poor diet. That's what worries me. But there's a right way of doing it and the wrong way of doing it. So. Yeah, someone who didn't eat anything at all, no breakfast and a little crappy salad for lunch now have a name for it. You know, you need to. Whatever strategy or diet you're on, you need to do research and make sure you do it right so it benefits you.

Okay. Now, we talked about intermittent fasting, and then you said something really interesting. You said, have a little crappy salad for lunch. But isn't salad good for you?

Yes, but not if it's filled with croutons and don't have that chicken that you need.

Yeah. And it's got bad oils in the dressing and msg.

Exactly. So could be. It doesn't have to be the salad. What I mean is that people that didn't eat enough nutrients before now have a name for a diet and that it's not fasting only. It can be any type of diet. There's. How can I put it? Well, that's what I've seen. To go back to the fasting, I've seen a lot of, many times, females that are not eating enough and who now have a name for their diet, and they can hide behind that and say. And justify it. And then they have misunderstood fasting.

There are some who, okay, there's anorexia that's hidden or orthorexia, which are real, real things for men and women. There's something that happens with women who aren't anorexic. Whether they're intermittent fasting or not, they just don't eat enough calories. They don't have enough energy because they didn't bring enough energy into their body. How do you teach them to eat enough?

Sometimes that's a challenge. The good thing now, after doing a couple of, you know, very public makeovers with. With females, the proof is in the pudding. They know who I've been working with. They can see the proof. So when I say Something they will listen. So. So it's easier the older you get and the more experience and, you know.

You'Re the voice of wisdom, say, all right, fine, I'll eat some more. And then they do it.

Yes and no.

Okay.

To change your behavior. It's not that easy if you. If you're not used to eating a lot of food or eating certain type of food, it's nothing that you change overnight.

So we're both relatively muscular guys. I'm probably a little taller than you, but do you ever sit down at a restaurant and just order two meals?

Yes. One thing that I teach a lot of my clients is to order an extra starter, a protein based starter. Because also restaurants are being, you know, the protein's the most expensive thing on the plate. Except asparagus, maybe. Maybe asparagus then. So, yeah, I like that. Two mains is a good option, but even better, many times is to order a protein based starter.

Okay. What's your favorite protein based starter? Typical restaurant?

Well, anything from a grilled octopus to a carpaccio beef tartare.

So I like to stress test things by saying, what do extremists do? So what does an astronaut do to recover because they need the most recovery? Or what does an actual superhero on the screen do in order to look like a superhero? Which is why you're an interesting person to have on the show because you're saying the hardest case here, where you have to be super lean and super ripped, which kind of go. They oppose each other in nature. Do you use keto as a part of that?

I've done once when I worked with Alice Avikander on Tomb Raider. And during the final weeks of our cutting cycle, she had to travel to the jungle somewhere in South America. So then I thought it was this. This is gonna be super simple. If we, you know, I sent some MCT oil with her, she can get fresh fish. It was easy for me to control the diet. So not pure keto that many times. It really depends on who I'm working with.

Okay.

And I do. I do feel like people are responding to different diets as well. And I'm trying to stay very humble when it comes to pushing my diets on other people. When I. When I do these superhero movies, I want to start somewhere and then I monitor and then I make adjustments.

Right. I love that you said there isn't one diet for. For anyone. And I've written a book about how to kind of dip in and out of ketosis. But the only thing in there that I'LL tell you works for everyone is don't eat foods that cause inflammation. Like that works for everyone. But they so what is the list? And so it's kind of frustrating because people always want the one thing that works.

Well, I find it fascinating that you, you say when we're talking about food that causes inflammation, that can be different. And I think that's why you have people on the other side that are saying that no, no food can ever cause inflammation because we can't prove it. But we do. We do know that. Yeah, we're all different. And it might cause inflammation for me, but not for you.

And so I cook a meal for one of those people.

Yeah.

Because I know how to cause every kind of inflammation. I'd cook a meal that had him feeling hungover the next day and I'd say, don't worry, the food didn't do it. It's just because you're weak. So like you can stack a lot of inflammagens in one meal.

Yes.

You know, some deep fried soybean oil. Right. Lots of sugar, some gluten, some casein, some artificial sweeteners, and a bunch of plants that aren't really food that we can eat when we're not starving.

I'll stick to my steak.

Yeah, I'm with you there. All right, let's talk about steak, grass fed or industrial process?

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You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. All right, let's talk about steak. Grass fed or industrial process?

I order grass fed. So what I do is I order my meat from in boxes that comes on dry ice where I know that I'm getting in. I want to know where I'm getting my meat from.

I did the same thing when I lived in the U.S. now I just raised the animals myself. We have three cows and 25 sheep and 25 pigs. And I feed the pigs a special diet. Otherwise, pork fat is kind of in the middle of the road. It's relative high in omega 6s because they feed them corn. And so I don't eat that. So when I'm home, I know what I'm eating. When I'm on the road, though, I look for restaurants. My assistant drives her nuts and she helps me find places that have grass fed meat. And I say, grass fed, grass finished. And if so, then that's the restaurant. And I'll go there five nights in.

A row and thank you. Grass fed, grass finished. That's a big one. So being European, my platform is very mixed. I have a lot of Europeans following me, and they are confused when I keep talking about grass fed. Because where I'm from, everything's grass fed.

It takes about six weeks of grain feeding to make a cow diabetic. I wonder what happens if we go on a crappy diet for six weeks? Does that do the same thing to us? What's your take? Does it.

Here's an interesting job that I did. I worked with Mark Ruffalo on a TV show called I Know this Much Is True. He's playing twins. I was hired to make sure that One twin was 40 pounds heavier than the other. So first of all, what I convinced him to do is to let's take him down 20 pounds below his normal for 20 to win number one and then gain the 40. So it's just an additional 20. But what we did, I was manipulating insulin and sugar the first thing in the morning, last thing at night, you know, ice cream, whipped cream, banana, a lot of fast carbs, sugar at the wrong time. And yeah, he. I know his inflammations came back and he felt crappy. And yeah, we tried to do it as healthy as possible, but that was. That was an interesting six weeks when we did that.

Wow. So you actually use circadian timing as part of breaking a system as well as building it. So you don't have clients eat after the sun goes down kind of a thing.

Yeah. Unless you been performing at 9pm and you haven't had anything to eat all day, then it's different. But yes, I do that. Yes. So basically you do the opposite.

Yeah.

To. To. To mess.

So I have sugar in the middle of the night and the first thing in the morning and you're gonna just really quickly put on £20?

Yes.

Okay, £40. I'm amazed. I think it was Tom Hanks. While ago, he had one roll where he had to be like gaunt and like, wow, the fortitude to be able to get that lean just for a roll. And then another roll where he had to be like 40, 40 pounds overweight. And I remember the interview with him just saying, God, I never felt so bad in my life. But I mean, the fact they can pull off that swing or I've had a chance to talk with Gerard Butler and I mean, the amount of muscle that he'll put on in like a few weeks for these rolls, I mean, he's the guy from 300 and just like completely cut.

Well, I think it's important to know that you can't put on huge amounts of muscle mass unless you start from scratch. I wouldn't be able to. So when you hear this constantly that, oh, no one can gain that much. I mean, I did a challenge with a female youtuber a couple of months ago who gained 6 pounds in 30 days by me just helping her remotely. Was it all? The DEXA scan said it was all muscle. It might have been out of the stuff too. Yeah, who cares? She looked great, she got stronger. But here's the thing. If you take someone, let's say someone who's been running 10k four times a week, who's never hit the gym eating.

Poorly, they're going to put muscle on like no one's business.

Right. Just by changing their diet, they're going to put on muscles. So that's when you can do these extreme transformations. And if they start from anything else than scratch, it won't be that radical or extreme. It just won't. I have many people I work with when we didn't, you know, can't you.

Cheat a little bit? Like, I. This is going back about four or five years when SARMs first kind of came on the market. I put on 29 pounds of muscle in six weeks without changing my exercise or diet. What I had to, like, I went. I remember really well because I packed a shirt that I would wear on stage and I Get there and I put on the shirt and like the buttons are popping. I can't wear the thing. I had to like go buy a shirt.

What did you take?

I took four different SARMs, the selective androgen receptor modulators, like LGD4033, GW501,516, which increases mitochondrial biogenesis.

You and I need to talk. What's that? I don't really know what that is.

I have a post about this, but basically you take testosterone. Testosterone works. And I've been on testosterone since I was 26. Full disclosure, I used to have less testosterone than my mom in my mid-20s because I was obese. And I had all sorts of metabolic dysfunction and estrogenic toxic mold exposure. So my system was just wrecked. And I keep my levels at about 700, which is where they ought to be for a guy my age or guy was younger. So not super high. You know, the body builds are at 2000, but testosterone turns into estrogen through this process of aromatization, which you're familiar with. The fatter you are, the faster you are at aromatazing. There's genetics involved and I tend to over aromatize anyway, so I block that with some herbal stuff. And also I don't make too much estrogen and I can excrete it more quickly with another thing that helps your second detox pathway. So I do all that. But these SARMs, they activate the androgen receptors that testosterone was. But testosterone might have like a 2 to 1 anabolic to estrogenic ratio. These things are like 200 to 1. So they just turn on the testosterone without turning on the estrogen. And I mean, it was so ridiculous. I actually ended up hurting my shoulder because you can't grow cartilage and tendons as fast as you can grow muscle. So I'm like stupidly strong. Like, you hear the spraying sound and then you get to do shoulder rehabilitation. And I'm not recommending this to anyone. In fact, it was probably not good for me, but I'm just like, okay. And I did my post about SARMs. I'm the guinea pig. But I've often thought between some of the stuff we're doing at upgrade labs, it puts muscle on about three times faster than just lifting iron. Things like isometrics, but with a moving force and some other technologies in a new book I'm working on, like blood flow restriction, for example, or the bands that you sell, right? Like, all of these are better than what we did before. So it's like there's all these things, but you combine those with the right chemicals and stuff happens where it could.

Be, can you get those prescribed?

A few doctors will prescribe them but most of the time they're considered research chemicals. But they're rampant in the bodybuilding community, but also the anti aging community because my favorite one, GW 501516 also known as Carterine, it's not really an androgen receptor modulator, but they always call it one. It causes you to grow more mitochondria, a lot more. And mitochondria, as you know, they're power plants themselves but they're also protein manufacturing and serotonin manufacturing and they're actually factories. So when all of a sudden your body puts these on more so than you get from cold water exposure, whatever else. Like okay, I got my manufacturing plants. But what surprised me is that I didn't modify my food. I already eat a good amount of protein and fat and all that kind of stuff. High quality, not too many carbs, but some carbs and just the change. I had to buy new clothes in six weeks.

Did you have any side effects?

One of them is one of the four that I took and they're in my blog post on it. I think it was LGD5066. One of them has a mild testosterone suppression. So you do a post cycle therapy and you know, you know in Hollywood that gets rampant. People need to get ripped for a role. If I'm going to take testosterone for a little while, not a problem. In fact it's I think very common and but I fascinated. How do you, how do you get that vision to look at someone and be like, you know what they need a little bit more lats and that.

There'S a lot of monitoring. Well, first of all, when, when you do a big movie, you sit down from the get go with possibly the director, but definitely with the actor and you talk about the character because you're building a character. Who is this person? What's your background? What skill set do they have? Are they angry? Are they animalistic? And then you try to shape and mold that and that's a big part of it.

That's really cool. I never thought of it like that. So you're kind of like a sculptor.

It is a part of it. And I think now if you look at the Northman, my latest project with Alexander Skarskard, I did Tarzan with him as well. And you can see if you compare the two body types that now we wanted someone who his spirit animal is a wolf, bear, and he's angry. He never felt love. He's a Viking that destroys everything in his way, in his path. And you can see that, the way he's hulking forward and moving. And we worked hard on building that into the character.

That is a really cool, really cool project. I love knowing that you did that. I want to know what was the most challenging of all the makeovers and all the training things you had to do. The one that you're like, how am I going to do?

Well, there's been a few. I think the Mark Ruffalo makeover was extremely challenging because I had never done that before. And you don't know if you're gonna hit the mark. That's how it is every time. You can only do what you can do and then that's it. I think any project. I would like to go back to any project. The most challenging thing is once you hit the mark. First day of filming. Now you build someone up, they have a lot of muscle mass, low body fat. Now we're going to film for six months. You're going to run around like a maniac 12 hours a day on a movie set. How do we stay in that shape? And that's where. That's the hardest part. Because I'm with someone on set and I overlook everything they do and try to get a feeling for how. How do they feel? How are they overall? What's their energy level? Do I need to up the calories a little bit? Do I need to lower them? So that. Yeah, that's the hardest part on every single project to maintain.

It's the maintenance so you can get them there, but keeping them there over the course of six months. Yeah, it. It's crazy. I. I never understood until actually it was Brandon Routh who explained it to me, who played Superman in 2006. And I just had no idea. And I think most listeners, unless you've really thought about it, the behind the scenes pressure, including really low quality food, as you've seen on the set. Right. As well as just those crazy hours and nighttime shoots and really bad lighting. Like some of these guys are putting, you know, the glasses on between sets just to let their brains relax and then they try to sleep after that. And I want to go there on sleep because I think they're some of the worst sleepers because of all this disruption. And you interviewed our mutual friend Michael Bruce recently and introduced all my listeners to what, your video on sleep, which is what's on your YouTube channel?

It is, yes.

And what's your YouTube channel.

First Magnus method.

Okay, so just Magnus method on YouTube and magnessmethodapp.com is where people get the app.

That's my training app with all my superhero programs and nutrition plans as well.

Good deal. So there's a huge wealth of knowledge there. So what do you know about sleep?

Well, first of all, I find that a lot of my clients that don't sleep enough are really stressed about it. So I think you need to allow yourself to set yourself up for success by turning off cell phones, removing them an hour, two hours before bedtime if you can, making sure not to drink coffee after five. For me it's individual.

I feel like after five you're Swedish though. You guys just drink coffee. In fact, the highest coffee drinking per chocolate in the world.

That is right, my friend. Ten cups a day.

Yeah.

But I also did a DNA test when it said will most likely consume a lot of caffeine.

That's your fast metabolizer.

Yeah. So coffee or caffeine, not too late. Making sure not to eat sugar or fast carbs at night and maybe not do a high paced workout too close to bedtime.

Well, you talk about, at least in your video that I saw between 3 and 20 minute segments before bed, specific things to do which is definitely like don't drink coffee too late. So what goes in those three to 20 minute segments?

Well, what I do is I turn on the lights, make sure to move my phone. I don't have the luxury right now to turn off myself two hours before bedtime. I make sure to prepare my cold brew for the morning. I have my routines that I do.

It's mostly a slowing down and a dimming of the lights.

Dimming of the lights for sure. Slowing down, removing too much lights and electronics.

After a lot of reading and just a lot of experimenting, I am fully convinced that when it comes to improving sleep, light is a more important thing to set your circadian timing through the SCN than food. So it's like light food temperature in order. Right. So even if you dim the lights, you eat a bunch of ice cream before bed, you did it wrong. But if you say I'm going to leave the lights on and eat ice cream, it's even worse. Right. But if you skip the ice cream and you dim the lights. Wow. Even if you exercise a little bit late, you're going to be okay. And so the relative strength of those seems to be light, food, exercise. But it's so hard. Like, like I talked to Steve Aoki when I interviewed him for his Book right before the pandemic. And, you know, he's like doing sets till two in the morning with like blinky strobe lights with blue spectrum.

And even later than that, I've been working with a lot of DJs. Yeah.

Okay.

So I've been to Vegas way too many times. And many times they get on stage at 2am in the morning and they play to 5, and it is such a challenge. It messes with your hormones. It messes with everything. Everything. It's probably the hardest job on planet Earth, and it is really hard. I don't have a good answer for you there. What I do if I feel like this is a real issue and whatever adjustments I'm trying to make or help them with, I have an expert like Dr. Michael Bruce that I send them to. So I know when I'm, when I, I know what I know. And I am not afraid of using my network of experts when needed.

So that's so cool.

I'm not an expert on sleep. I can't even hold a conversation with Dr. Michael Bruce for, you know, why even try when he, I, I'm good at what I do and he's the man, what he does. So I, I think that's important.

It's terribly important. And I think letting people know that you do that is really valuable because there's some listeners saying, I want to be a coach. I'm going to do it all myself. No, you're not. I don't do everything I do myself. There's all kinds of people know way more than I do, way more than you do. You just have to know who knows.

What you need to know, who to trust.

How do you know who to trust?

Well, I'm always trying to take in new things. I'm ambitious at what I do. I'm driven. I try to do my homework. So before I trust anyone with information, they need to pass certain levels of security. So that's a good question. I don't have a straight answer for you, but it takes time.

So I've been going through over the last 20 years and just curating, knowing the right experts and getting a chance to talk to them here. And that's why I wanted to have you on the show because you build literally superhuman physiques and you do it under really rough conditions. So you go on the list of someone who is highly credible, and that's like a Ray Dalio style of how believable is someone. And so I would say you're highly believable in your craft. So I learned a lot just about how you think about it.

Thank you. That means a lot to me. Thank you.

You're welcome. And thanks for coming out to the Beverly Hilton to do a live interview. Now that we can do those again. Thanks, brother.

Thank you so much, guys.

Go to magnusmethod.com There's a ton of info here. And like I just said, Magnus knows his craft. He spent enough time doing it and he's done it enough times and enough very highly visible roles that he's believable, which is why he's on the show. See you all next time. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

A Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider provider carefully, read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.