Variable Resistance: The Ultimate Muscle Hack – Dr. John Jaquish | 1136 | Dave Asprey

Most guys past 25 are like, embarrassed to take their shirt off because they just don't look that great. Also, I'm not a bodybuilder. Like, I mean, this is the condition that I'm still basically in. It's on the front.

If you're just listening, he holds up a book. I'm not a bodybuilder. And he's got his shirt off. And I mean, he's like twice as ripped as I am.

In the entire year of 2023, I worked out for 14 hours and 43 minutes. That's all of the efficiency of variable resistance.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today we're going to talk about testosterone. We're going to talk about something called progressive overload and variable resistance training. In other words, how to have muscles that actually look reasonably well, reasonably good without spending more time than is necessary. Now, you might be a meathead who just loves to spend six hours a day in the gym. And you could even kind of own with pride the name meathead the way I do. I own the word nerd with pride. So we might come from different cliques in high school, but at the end of the day, even if you are a meaningfully strong powerlifter or a fitness competitor, if you can achieve all of your goals in half the time and use the other time to do something you enjoy, even if it's just watching reruns on Netflix, there's an argument that wasting your time doing things less effectively isn't a good one. That's why I wrote Smarter, not Harder. And that's why I'm really motivated. I spent 702 hours in the gym over the course of 18 months when I was 300 pounds, trying to fix stuff. And I just did things that didn't work. I worked really hard. I didn't get results. So we've got a guest for you today who has a similar story. But he was looking at first to fix a problem in his family and just went really, really, I'm going to say off the deep end in the best possible way towards exercise physiology. Dedicated years to refining strategies for improving health, building bone density. He actually has clinical studies showing he can put muscle on faster than lifting rocks on sticks, which is what actually barbells are. You'll see some of the most elite athletes and Olympians in the world using what he has. And you last heard him on the show in episode number 863. In 20, he's written a book with a title that makes me happy. Weightlifting is a Waste of Time. And a more technical one called Osteogenic Loading. If that's not enough as a. As an intro, I'm talking about Dr. John Jaquish. John, welcome to the show.

Hey, Dave, thanks for having me.

Now, if you're watching this on YouTube, and by the way, if you haven't followed me on YouTube, my channel, I'm putting a lot of shorts and a lot of good stuff up there, so make sure you check it out. But you kind of look like you might have picked up a weight or two. You're one of those guys who, you know, just a wall of muscle. People in the field of biohacking, like, the inner circle people who really are working on stuff, we've been talking for 10 years since, like, the start of the biohacking movement about these things. And to. Just. Weightlifting is a waste of time. It's so in your face and it's. And it almost insults a bunch of people. Do you get a lot of haters online? Literally, you've got your shirt off, you've got your beautiful partner, you've got your sports cars. You know, you're kind of like the 80s poster of success, Right?

Thanks, man.

Get a lot of shit. I mean, you look great. You're living a great life.

Like, I. Part of what I'm trying to do is, like, explain my lifestyle. Yeah. And how I don't live in the gym. Like, I actually go out and enjoy being strong and super fit, and my wife is strong and super fit. In actuality, I'm in the office a lot of the time. But when I get out of the office, I do have a great time, and I go and see all kinds of beaches and exciting things all over the world. And I get a lot of great pictures. Me being in shape and, you know, it's. It's what I want people to see. Like, that lifestyle. Like, most. Most guys past maybe 25 or, like, embarrassed to take their shirt off because they just don't look that great. Also, you know, I'm not a bodybuilder. Like, I mean, this is the condition that I'm still basically in.

It's on the trouble guys, if you're just listening, he holds up a book. I'm not a bodybuilder. And he's got his shirt off. And I mean, he, He. He's like twice as ripped as I am. I mean, I'm. I'm at. I just measured him at 5.4% body fat last night. But you have probably twice the muscle mass. I do. Because you spend more time on it than I do.

I don't think I do, actually. I. In fact, I. Yeah, I got a screenshot for you. In the entire year of 2023, I worked out for 14 hours and 43 minutes.

There you go.

See, that's in a year.

I'm 20 minutes a week all in on all of my exercise.

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's like, right there. Like, you know, it's a very small amount of time. Now, I busted my ass in that 14 hours, but that's spread out over a year. So that's sort of all of the efficiency of variable resistance. And so when I'm. When I'm able to apply a higher level of force in stronger positions of an exercise and a lower level of force in the more compromised positions of exercise, well, then I can go to a greater level of fatigue and trigger more growth. Now, this is the type of muscle growth that is muscle protein synthesis. I think a lot of people in fitness discussions, they really don't realize that there's two types. Well, there's really three types of muscle growth. One's really hard to get, but there's sarcoplasmic and myofiber. Myofibril is where you're basically getting stronger by definition, like in the moment, because you have more mechanical structures within the cell, more actin and myosin that come together. And that's what actually creates the shortening of the muscle contraction. The other type of muscle growth is sarcoplasmic. So, meaning that's like. So the first kind is more like the engine that is the muscle. And. And sarcoplasmic is more like the gas tank. So you can have a bigger gas tank too, by forcing more blood into the muscle on a frequent basis. Therefore, the muscle decides, okay, we're going to store more fuel within the muscle. So that's ATP, glycogen and creatine phosphate. So those are the three fuels that sit in the muscle when you compound what's, you know, generally known as volume training. And this is not a shortcut. This takes a lot of time. So that kind of thing is also amazing with variable resistance. Variable resistance produces the same exact muscle size results that regular training does, but you get so much stronger with variable resistance.

There's two things listeners are interested in. One is, how strong am I? And the other one is how do I look like, how big am I? What's the relationship between the size of your muscles and your actual strength, it's.

Not necessarily one to one. Now if you look at some of the strongest people in the world, it becomes one to one because in everything you do, whether it's more strength focused or more blood flow focused, I want to call it blood flow because it's really what's going on. With the blood comes the ATP, the glycogen, the creatine phosphate. And it gets behavior basically deposited in the muscle. Some of it's used and some of it is retained and that, that compounds over time. So when you're looking at most people, most athletes, basically everybody except for bodybuilders and some fitness people is really looking at strength because people want to be a, as the higher, highest power to weight ratio as possible. So most amount of strength difference and actually less size. So if you were like, if you look at lower weight class power lifters or, or gymnasts, like they want to be as explosive as possible. They don't want to put on mass like that's the last thing they want because they gotta pull all that mass through the air as they're, as they're moving. So, so they're working on things like potentiation. They're trying to get more muscle firing. So that's a neurological difference also called skill building.

Right.

And, and they're also focused on very explosive movements, very high levels of exhaustion, short periods of time, not trying to get exaggerated blood flow at all. So that was the X reprogramming that that you sort of got when I gave you one of the prototypes in the program.

Let's talk about that for a minute. So, so guys, back when John was on this show, actually before you even on the show, you sent me one of the first 5x3 bars ever made. And this is something that you become well known for. And this is the way you apply variable resistance. I even wrote about it in Smarter, not Harder because it's one of the several different ways that puts muscle on better than picking up rocks. And it, it, I think that the, it's probably a Facebook posting or something back then that I did it, it totally helped to blow up, got a lot of attention on it and you could really feel and see the difference. And you just came out with a new digital version of the X3 bar, which is why I want to have you back on. Because this thing is really incredible. I'm all about the data. I don't care what some epidemiologist says or some super angry men's health exercise physiologist who's basically a troll out. I don't care what they say. I really don't. All I care about is my data or your data. And your results are my results. So some clown can tell you that, you know, statins work, and the only way to live longer is exercise. And there's a longevity guy out there, a doctor, trying to say these things right now. The reality is it's more complex, but show me the data. And the data is you. So with the X3 bar, I tried it for a few weeks before I promoted it. I was like, holy crap, this is different. And with the digital version, you have. You can show people they get stronger faster. You can show them exactly how much they did. So I'm. I'm a huge fan of this.

Not. Well, I mean, you. You don't have one yet. You're gonna.

I know the value of data for motivation, and I know the value of the X3 bar. So, like a digital X3 bar, it's so good.

So, yeah, like, variable resistance will make you absolutely stronger, so much faster.

But.

But the concept of progressive overload, most of the audience probably never heard that term. What it means is you need. I never liked the term before because when somebody would say, like, you know, what's your method of training? They're like progressive overload. So your method of getting stronger is getting stronger, because that's really what that means. It's like that kind of dumb. But the concept is, if you are getting stronger, you can progressively handle more resistance. So you can go up in repetitions, or you can do the same amount of repetitions and each repetition is done slower. So more time under tension. That's progressive overload, or you're dealing with a higher level of resistance. So all three of those things, or a mix of any of those things, is greater force created. So you're progressing the overload. You only grow muscle from a protein synthesis standpoint when you best those numbers. So if you're not beating your previous, then you're not really doing anything. Now, this is just from a myofibro perspective, not a sarcoplasmic perspective, but for the people who want to be as strong as possible, you want to make sure you're breaking your record every time. So.

If I flew around the planet yesterday and I've got circadian disruption and I'm recovering from a cold, and I go into lift, do I really want to break my previous best on that day when my body isn't really ready to grow?

I would tell you, sleep today. Let's do it tomorrow.

Okay, There you go. So that's part of what Upgrade Labs is doing. It's like, hey, let's get your data. And if you know your desire is to lift heavy, but your body is like, nuh, but let's not do it. Let's, let's put you in an advanced recovery protocol, right? Yeah.

There are plenty of days where your body says no. You want to create that environment where you're besting your previous. So the original program was more like a standard kind of fitness program, but I'm doing something a little different now. Whereas we focus on strength, you basically just do one set per exercise per week and you're fully recovered going in because you had an entire week rest. And then in between you just do volume work. And so you know my approach to this and I haven't launched the program yet because the number.