Biohacking Muscle Growth: How To Maximize Anabolism & Muscle Hypertrophy Using Targeted Delivery Of Nutrients To Muscle Tissue During Exercise, With Professional Bodybuilder Milos Sarcev.

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

When we are younger, yeah, you would just be careless and you just go heavy, push to the limit. Well, human body is not really designed to be pounded like this. You think it's healthy breaking down, you know, constantly, repeatedly do daily, twice a day and it's not going to affect your even lifespan. But it's maybe not necessary for a pencil neck in university and just considering, okay, you don't really need it. So if you ask me and if he is ready to bet, I would be ready to bet my life.

Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking and much more.

My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. Welcome, welcome to the show. I thought that I would be really friendly and tenderhearted and kind and loving in today's podcast introduction. Kind of like a summer Santa Claus. Mostly just because I, I don't know, I felt happy this afternoon and now I feel like I'm super annoying. So I'm going to go back to being the, the gritty, mildly grumpy Ben Greenfield. No, I'm just kidding, it's me. Sorry you guys, I'm in a weird mood today. So anyways, my guest today is a guy who was introduced to me by my friend and former bodybuilder Ben Pakolski. This guy's name is Milos Sarkev. Milos was absolutely amazing and intriguing and I really gonna, I really gonna think, I really think you're gonna dig today's podcast because I'll pre workout, during workout, post workout nutrition and we kicked out hard. I'll go forth and enjoy today's show. All right folks, when it comes to during and post workout nutrition, there's probably no population on the face of the planet who has been as immersed in that sector from a very detailed and often, often like a, like a early biohacker type of approach standpoint than the bodybuilding community. And I have one of the best bodybuilders of all time on the show with me today, Milos Sharkev to his approach to pre, during and post workout nutrition. Because amongst bodybuilders he actually is very much recognized as the go to guy for nutrition coaching and is himself a real, real expert in some ways that you can maximize recovery, maintain anabolism and train with specific nutrients in your bloodstream to maximize your results. He's also a strength conditioning coach, He's a contest preparation consult and considered to be one of the prominent authorities on nutrition and the human body. As a matter of fact, in the bodybuilding industry, some people call him quote, the mind Unquote. So his list of accolades in bodybuilding is absolutely tremendous. And his methods of training and hormone manipulations for achieving what he calls a hyper anabolic state and maximal hypertrophy are practiced by literally millions of trainees around the world. You've probably been influenced by this guy's work if you have ever stepped foot in a gym. And he's been doing this since he was 17 years old. He's 56 years old now, formerly from Yugoslavia and also known as Serbia, of course now. And he went from judo to karate to swimming to soccer to basketball, onto bodybuilding by the time he was 17 years old, and from there wound up winning multiple titles on the national and on the international scene. He has won the amateur Mr. Universe diverse competition as well. And again, his list of accolades go on and on. So everything that we discuss in today's show you can find over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Milos, that's M I L O S Milos, which is Milos's first name, of course. So BenGreenful Fitness.com Milos Milos, welcome to the show, man.

Ben, thank you so much for this invitation. I really appreciate it. Listen to your podcast, I've seen your website, I see your YouTube. I agree with pretty much everything that you're saying normally. So when you contacted me and you want to discuss exactly this anabolism, anabolic phase that I create, the miracle during a training which I believe I really pioneered because I don't know anybody before me actually applying anything similar to. And I'm going to be honest and say that this is actually not my idea. There was idea that came from my brilliant father who was a doctor, science of neuropsychiatry, who since childhood always encouraged me to think with my own head. Everything I see and I read and I hear, I have to question it and challenge it and see if it makes sense. And in one of those times when I was telling him about my hypertrophy training and bodybuilding, you know, he just randomly questioned me. So he told me, okay, can you please explain me, you know, how do you build muscle at that time, that was early 80s, of course, just reading literature that you can get in exercise physiology, what can you say, oh yeah, we're going to just go to the gym, have a excruciating intense workout, we're going to break down the muscle fibers, we're going to deplete ATP, we're going to deplete the glycogen storage, lose amino acids, and all this is going to trigger our body to replenish everything and create that hypertrophy. And to my surprise, immediately, you know, he started laughing and said, like, what do you mean? So he says, okay, let's do this. He brought a sledgehammer from basement and he said, you want to break down your room?

Sledgehammer, sledgehammer.

I'm serious. And I'm saying this so people can maybe visualize it. And here I am, 17 years old. You know, my father, of course, is academic, but he was always, you know, quite sarcastic, you know, But I didn't still get it. What do you mean by this? It's okay, just break down the room and then let's rebuild it. And then, you know, when you rebuild it, let's break it again and again and again. I say, like, what is the point? You want to break it down, catabolize, or you want to build it up, anabolize? So it's okay. That triggered a little bit of my attention. But again, you know, even though you have a most brilliant father, somehow when we are teenagers, you don't really want to listen to them. I don't know, what is that rebellious thing in all the teenagers? Initially, I didn't want to really listen to what he had to say. But after a couple of weeks, I went back and said, okay, so what is that you suggest? And at that time he told me very specifically, do you know how much blood you have in your body? Of course, I didn't have any clue. I was a kid. So you say, yeah, you have a 5, 6 liters, or let's say 7, 8% of your body weight. And you understand that right now at this moment of rest, you maybe have a 10% of that blood in your muscle.

This is what your dad was telling you?

Yeah, that's what my dad was telling me. So to visualize. He always wanted to be so descriptive so I can maybe visualize it, see it. And then I always use his favorite quotation, which is my favorite quotation from Socrates. I cannot teach you anything, but I can make you think. So he wanted to trigger my thinking process, what he's going to say. So if I have a 10% of the blood in a muscle at rest, and then I go to the gym and I start doing this crazy workouts, increase blood flow to the muscle is going to reach like astonishing 70%, maybe even more in exact muscle fibers of a muscle that I'm training. So he says, do you understand that unique once in a day opportunity or twice in the day if you train twice, that you're gonna deliver all this blood into the working muscle. So say, okay, that makes some sense. Yeah, I understand, but so what?

And what was your dad by the way? Was he a scientist or was he an exercise enthusiast? What was his background?

No, no, he was a doctor. Science of neuropsychiatry. Okay, so he was doctor, but he was most ready educated, intelligent guy.

Right, so, so he, he certainly understood the shift of blood volume to working muscle during training.

And you know, to be fair, he was maybe athlete, but I never considered him exercise scientist. So of course for that reason, like I said, teenagers would want to say, what do you know, like okay, I would much rather listen to Arnold Schwarzenegger than you know what you're gonna say. But when he made a point of saying, imagine if you will have pre digested so ready for uptake all the anabolic anti catabolic beneficial nutrients in your blood. And then during a training, this blood is going to now go to your working muscle. And each muscle contraction that you do, whichever exercise, however you do it would create uptake of these nutrients into the exact muscle fiber that you want, providing you also trigger anabolic hormones that would enhance that. Insulin, for example, if you would create in the blood hyperglycemia, which would cause hyperinsulinemia and then you would have a hyper amino acidemia. You're going to have everything that you want that is beneficial and nothing that can actually be detrimental. Would it be beneficial or they would make no sense? That was his question to me and of course immediately it made sense to me. But nobody was really doing this at the time. So I was like, well okay, that's your theory. And of course, few days later it was just like bothering me because I was so deeply thinking about it. And then I decided in Serbian pharmacies at that time for renal patients, there were pharmaceutical grade essential amino acids that you can get on a prescription. And to be completely honest, as a teenager I stole my father's prescription notebook and I learned how to say that in the Latin language, necessa est and write my own prescriptions. So I went to like so many pharmacies and I get lots of those essential amino acids.

So you had to go to a pharmacy to get essential amino acids to experiment with what your dad was telling you?

Yes, yes, because let's talk. That's 1980s. 1980s, you didn't have a supplement companies producing any kind of amino acids. This was just strictly for medical use.

Yeah, this would have been the equivalent today of if you were to get like a SARMS or a peptide or Something like that that was not sold for human consumption, but that you picked up from like a chemical website back when you were using essential amino acids. That's what you had to do.

Yeah, correct. It was prescription only. It wasn't over the counter. But to make long story short, I got this dextrose and I got the essential amino acids and I started using it. And results that I was getting, I mean, instantly within days, it was like mind boggling to me. If I can say this on your podcast. At that time I was 100% natural. I was a natural athlete. I didn't even think of any enhancements. And I actually came all the way to America in 1980 and competed in Miss Universe contest Drug free, not knowing anything about anabolics and not wanting to take them because I wanted to do it naturally. I wanted to do it the right way, you know, just to make sure. But again, for people to understand the improvement that I was making, I was actually being accused of taking anabolic steroids at the time, and I didn't know a from anabolic steroids. And that was all due to this increased hyperemia. Blood saturated with the.

Yes, that's a technical term for what you've described. Hyperemia is the increase in blood flow to skeletal muscle, which, by the way, it's pretty profound that your father was aware of that because it wasn't even until after the 80s when we realized how profound, pretty much the entire increase in cardiac output during exercise is also all for skeletal muscle blood flow. And the amount of milliliters per minute that increases to muscle during tissue is way, way higher than anybody thought it was until we started looking at studies. I mean, in 2015 they came out with a big study. It's on PubMed now. I'll link to it in the show notes for people who want to read it about the regulation of increased blood flow to muscles during exercise. And it pretty much outcompetes any physiological need, like the blood shift to muscle during exercise via this mechanism. What you call hyperemia. Dramatic.

Yes, I can tell you. Actually, since then I was researching because I was doing some presentations in Cuba and in Russia, my hyperemia advantage system. And I had to come up with all these numbers, as you said. Now, so many milliliters per minute per like hundred grams of muscle. So for people to understand in a rest period, that's usually only 3, 4 milliliters per minute in 100 grams of muscle during the exercise, that goes like 50 fold, like hundreds to 200 milliliters per minute per hundred grams of muscle and highest recorded that I found in the literature was 400 milliliters. It's almost a half liter of blood going through the hundred grams of muscle in one minute. So this is just mind boggling for me now when you think about this kind of hyperemia and increased blood flow. I was saying this in my advertisements back in like 2001 I did the Flex magazine article, it was called Magic Workout Drink when I was explaining this. And then 2006 I created my first pre, intra and post workout supplementation. I was implementing all this theory of hyperemia, putting all this into the muscles and measuring like how much can really any of my athletes improve. And I'm talking about professional bodybuilders now maybe your average listener right there is not going to extremes. Maybe they're just like normal people. So I'm talking about extreme of the extreme pro bodybuilders that make living off of bodybuilding. They have reached a certain level of development and plateaued. They could not, you know, make another pound of muscle. And then just changing this only parameter of introducing intra workout supplementation, saturating the blood with all these nutrients and delivering, they create astonishing results to the point that people are wondering how is this even possible? And if you follow, if you follow bodybuilding, I don't know if you know the names, but Nasser Al Sambadi was one of the guys that out of nowhere became a top three Mr. Olympia competitor that he really blew up like over 30 pounds in a short few months between the competitions. And then there was Dennis James, there was Dennis Wolff, Gustav Badel. You know, many guys that I worked with having bodybuilding industry, it goes, they would also always want to contribute to something else. But no, these pro bodybuilders were doing everything else before anyway. The only difference was that now that we apply this hyperemia advantage system, so creating anabolic phase each and every day when we train.

I want to stop for just a second because I have just a few questions I don't want to forget before you move on to what you were going to explain. First of all, this concept of increased skeletal muscle blood flow and the fact that it's increasing to this significant extent during exercise based on this concept of hyperemia that, you know, those studies were done in the absence of vasodilatory substances. So I'd be curious if the addition of a pre workout vasodilatory substance, you know, an arginine, citrulline, watermelon, beet, anything like this would actually increase that hyperemia to an even greater extent. Like if you're trying to deliver certain nutrients like essential amino acids into muscle tissue during a workout, have you used a vasodilatory substance to actually increase that delivery even more?

Absolutely. I mean, I didn't do the Double Blend University study, but immediately everything that made sense, I would include it. So 5 grams of Citrun, 3 grams of Arginine, I would do 2, 3 grams of Bethalanine, anything that I found useful. But as you say, vasodilatation happens itself by working muscle. But can any of these supplements further increase plasma utilization? Absolutely. Again, I'm not lab scientist that can say I had proved this in this test, but I always say you don't really need to prove that. Water is wet, the grass is green and sky is blue. You open your eyes and think about it and see it. So yeah, in my pre workout supplementation, I would use vasodilatating nitric oxide, boosting maximally concentrated essential amino acids inside the blood pool, electrolytes. Everything that I found useful at that time. But I was going to touch the subject of.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Just one more question before you touch on that subject. One other thing that comes to mind here is blood flow restriction training. And I don't know if you've looked at that at all, but obviously with blood flow restriction training you would be limiting hyperemia during exercise. And then once the cuffs are removed, you get this excess of blood in the blood vessels that form, causing the cell swelling that's so notoriously associated with the pump that you get from after bfr. Do you think that would be more of a scenario where you would actually target, I guess post workout nutrients more than intra workout nutrients? Because really during BFR training you're not getting a lot blood flow to the muscle. You know, there's some venous return that occurs. But then in a scenario like that, you would potentially take the same strategy you're outlining, but then do your large bolus of, let's say essential amino acids, for example, once you've removed the cuffs, if you were doing something like BFR or Katsu training does that, is that, is that kind of a decent thought pattern?

Yeah, I was exposed to it early 2000, maybe one 2002. I was in Japan and I think inventor of that was in my seminar. And then he talked about it and I told him at that time, particular time, that this didn't really make much sense to me. So he wanted to experiment with me. And I trained together with this is MMA superstar from Japan, Hyota Sakurai so we trained that day. We did arms and we did the legs. With this blood flow restriction. It was a new experience for sure. I did get a pump, but it really contradicts my whole theory of supplying the blood as we train. So when you're restricting it, what I'm really accomplishing. But I'm going to tell you this much. I experimented throughout the years off and on. I would start my training without restriction. I would create a pump and cell swelling. Then second, third rotation, let's say, of my giant sets for a particular body part, arms or legs. I would restrict it just so I can release it again for my last set. I don't know if you're familiar with the giant set rotations. Giant sets are when you apply like four or more exercises back to back without the rest, same muscle group. I mean, I've seen some studies and a lot of people doing this occlusion training and a lot of people are proponents for it. But for me, especially after I seen that you can create vascular damage and basically even thrombosis, I was pushed away from that. So I don't really at this time practice anymore. I did up until like a few years back, like 2017. After that I still am true to my method and my method makes more sense to me. So just to answer your question, should I find blood flow restriction beneficial, you know, for post workout cell swelling? I think I achieved this and by far excee in my principle of hyperemia advantage system which would be creating anabolic phase during a training, creating maximum protein synthesis, stimulus and degradation inhibition by having all these nutrients being taken in between sets. So you're maintaining glycemia, you're drinking in between sets. You're constantly bringing essential amino acids, glucose, electrolytes that you have, you know, so you would have it available as, you know, muscle needs glucose for contraction and how it's accepted throughout the years. Oh yeah, we can, you know, create you have a muscle glycogen or we can have a gluconeogenesis. Your body can produce the glucose. You know, that's why carbohydrates are not essential nutrients anyway. But for bodybuilders, we are not talking if it's essential or not. I'm talking about minimal optimal or maximal results. And as I'm talking about maximal results always, let's face it, all of us in all aspects of life, if you do something, we want to have maximum results, doesn't matter what it is. But if you're talking about training now, you are exposing yourself through this extreme stress and effort, do I want to maximize results or I just want to maintain something? So I realized that bringing the glucose into the plate during a workout, that I would have that constant flow of glucose delivery so I don't have to deplete my glycogen. I don't have to create gluconeogenesis and amino acids being converted in liver to deliver that glucose, you know, because the glucose is so needed and so overwhelmed, overwhelmingly used during a training, which if I can bring, I'm sure there is a gentleman that you know very well, Charles Polikin. Oh, yeah, Strength coach from Canada, that we are very good friends and we did the seminars from early 90s together. The way I actually got introduced to him is I read some of his studies that he would take 200 grams of glucose immediately after the training. And at that time, of course, for me, he's like, why would you do that? So he was explaining it just to dump all this glycogen back into the muscle, because his estimation of glycogen depletion during an intense workout would be close to 200 grams. Even at that time. I told him my theory, which he didn't want to accept all the way up until like maybe seven, eight years ago when he finally told me that. Miloshi, you were right all this time that for hypertrophy, having hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, hyperaminus edema, doing a workout. When you're doing all these crazy workouts and have a different stimulus and you have a myofibril and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy potential right there would be beneficial. So this is why I start implementing this glucose into the workouts.

That makes sense. I have a. I have a couple other questions here just from a logistical standpoint, and I also want to ask you about the form of glucose that you're using to. To maximize the delivery of these nutrients into the bloodstream. So, first of all, when you're talking about taking advantage of hyperemia by enhancing the delivery of something like essential amino acids into tissue during the workout itself, just. I mean, your entire concept really, in a very beautiful and elegant way, just essentially comes down to feeding the muscle groups. You're training with what's in your blood as you're training. But are you talking about actually having, for example, a shaker cup with you while you're training? And as soon as you finish a set, you're. You're kind of taking a sip of, say, you know, this essential amino acids combined with some of the Other ingredients that we'll get into and then going on doing your next set, taking another sip, et cetera. I mean, is it literally like, like, like taking a little bit in between each set?

Exactly. That's literally the concept of intra workout supplementation that you would sip throughout the workout and ideally finish like, like let's say 10 minutes before the workout. So idea of intra workout supplementation is to maintain levels of glucose and amino acids in between sets, making them readily available for the uptake.

What form of glucose are you using in that shaker bottle along with essential amino acids?

Okay, so this is a very good question and I'm sure you're going to appreciate it. I was probably the first guy that wrote the article in Flex magazine also about high molecular weight glucose polymers, namely Vitargo at the time, because at that time.

Vitargo, Vitargo, yeah, I'm familiar with that, by the way. Sorry, sorry to interrupt you again because I've used that quite a bit. So with endurance athletes who I coach, who I want to maintain a relative state of ketosis during exercise, I'll have them use primarily, preferably ketones, but MCT oil if they can't afford or don't have access to ketones, combined with essential amino acids, combined with electrolytes during their endurance performance. But then I'll use typically about 1/2 to 1/4 of the amount of carbohydrates normally recommended for endurance sport. And my recommendation for that, top of the list is this Vitargo, just based on the fact that it's such a high molecular weight starch, but very, very high glycemic index. It gets pulled into the muscle just because of the low osmolality. It moves through the stomach two to three times faster than any of the carbohydrates. So it absorbs like a sponge in the stomach. And prior to that, I had recommended a different high molecular weight starch called, called YouCan. And the problem with that one was people would experience a huge amount of gut fermentation, especially post workout, that would get bloating and gas for a long period of time post workout. And then when I shifted into making this recommendation for Vitargo instead, that all went away. So I'm familiar with the use of this high molecular weight starch for endurance sports. But you're using that with essential amino acids in between each set during the actual workout?

Yes. No, no. I have to ask you, I never heard. What is that? Ucan. What was polysaccharide or oligosaccharide? What was that?

You can the youcan. I'm trying to remember what the, what the molecular composition of that is. You know, I'm foggy. It's been so long since I've used. It was originally developed for glycogen storage issues and an actual glycogen storage disease. And then they started using it for endurance sports primarily. But it's maltodextrin. But it's a different form of maltodextrin and I'll have to look it up because I don't remember the molecular composition of ucan, but it seems to be. And my apologies to the folks at UCAN or anybody who likes to use that because some people do just fine with it. But I was just finding a lot of people would get bloating and gas afterwards due to this so called superstarch utilization that seemed to be completely gone once I shifted them into the use of Vitargo, which is really interesting because they both have low osmolality. But something about the composition of this superstarch was causing a lot of bloating.

Yes. Well, for that reason I'm going to tell you, I'm going to be completely honest. Maybe it's not the question the answer that you want to hear. But here is how I started. I started first believing into this osmolidity benefits and faster gastric emptying by high molecular weight glucose polymers. And then I used it with many, many of my athletes. I had a gym here in California and then a lot of people would come in here. So what was happening? At a certain time my staff forgot to order the Vitargo and they were of course terrified to tell me. So they were making my pre and intra workout shakes for all my guys. Specifically I would tell them let's say 75 grams of carbohydrate intra workout and they didn't have it the Vitargos. So they would just put the simple dextrose.

Okay.

And so, you know, the three, four days later, you know, like of course I found out what happened and then they told me none of us that they use it. I was training with them actually felt any difference.

Yeah, and it might be, you know, dextrose is derived from corn. And I do know that the superstarch the, well it's derived from a corn medium. Whereas I, I don't think Vitargo is based on a corn medium and that that could be the difference would just be that, that the, the, the carbohydrate used or the, the starch used as the starter for this is a corn based medium for that or for, or for Dextrose. Whereas do you know what they're using for virtual? Is it, is it a potato base?

Yeah, potato base.

Okay, so that might be the difference. Just the potato versus the corn base for sure.

But then this again made me think, you know, because many times, let's say you read the research, I would read the research. And you just want to believe it, right. And you just take it as it is. Oh, this is the result. But what is really interpretation of certain, certain of these studies that I have, especially I look at the hypertrophy studies and so on. Then I had to ask myself a question. What do I want to accomplish with any carbohydrate? I want to elevated glucose. So if I take a monomer, monosaccharide glucodextrose, that doesn't have to convert, you know, it is what it is. You take it within three minutes, it's going to shut up in your bloodstream after taking, you're going to have a glucose. And I want to deliver that glucose to make it available and also to trigger insulin release. You know, so if I would take glucose polymer cyclic dextrins as a popular. There was vaccinase before and as you mentioned, there was Vitargo and many other formulations. And I had to answer to my clients, do I really see a benefit to this expensive carbohydrates that would tell them honestly, truthfully, no. Because again, what do you want to get from carbohydrate powder that you're getting elevated glucose? Are you going to get it from simple cheap dextrose? Yes, you will. And now it was about this gastric emptying and you know, if it's isotonic, hypertonic or hypertonic, so it's like, okay, you, you would create that bloatness and you're gonna, you know, have that water coming into the blood, going to the gut. This is literally speaking two, three minutes difference, which I've seen with most of my athletes that they might feel a little bit bloated initially, but throughout the workout already, you know, body balances. And from that practical standpoint, I don't have any proof in physiology done study in university, but I've seen hundreds of athletes that have prepared. And I use this since really myself early 80s and I applied this in 90s when I turned pro. And all of my athletes since late 90s are using these protocols.

Yeah. And I did find a decent article that compares the maltodextrin composition versus versus Vitargo versus Youcan that actually looks at the blood glucose response. Pretty informative. Article that I'll link to in the show notes. But it does turn out that the UCAN superstarch, the rate of absorption is remarkably slower than that of Vitargo or even that of Maltodextrin. And so that might be the reason for the fermentation is that this superstarch is a hydrothermally modified waxy maize starch. And again it was originally used for treatment of glycogen storage disease. I think the slow rate of absorption might be why some people have to deal with fermentation when they're taking that in. Now another question would be when you're consuming something like essential amino acids during the workout, what kind of dosage are you using?

Yeah, I first supply essential amino acids in the pre workout. I didn't elaborate to you. My normal pre interim post workout supplementation would be about 30 minutes before the workout. I would start to supplement, saturate my body with the nutrients that I want to have. So I don't want to deliver too much. As you know, too much powder would need to be diluted with so much water. So you can't really drink all that at once. So first I would put like 10 to 15 grams of EAAs fortified with extra like 5 grams of leucine. I would add 10 grams of glutamine, 5 to 10 grams of creatine, depends on the athlete. 5 grams of citrulline, 3 grams of arginine, 23 grams betalonine, 2, 3 grams of L carnitine and 2, 3 grams of electrolytes. I usually use Himalayan salt just that way. This I would take 30 minutes before the workout to 45 minutes. Okay. Then when I start training I would make an inter workout shake that I would put 1015 grams of essential Aminos, sometimes for a bigger guy's 20.

So during the course of the entire workout you're consuming about 20 grams of essential amino acids from the start to the finish.

Yeah. During the workout. Yes, I did increase with many pro bodybuilders, myself included. But this would be like my advice to any listener that wants to create hyper anabolic state of the body and create anabolism during training that 20 grams of essential amino acids should be consumed. Some people like to mix 10 grams of essential with BCAAs.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you your take on that. The BCAAS versus eaas.

Yeah. For me there is no question about it that EAAS is by far superior formulation. What is as you describe in your videos I watched the other day, essential amino acids, nine essential amino acids. The body cannot Manufacture and you know, to complete protein synthesis of any tissue, or especially now muscle tissue, you're going to have to have all essential amino acids or you're going to stop the process. You know, like a body would synthesize. And whatever is missing, you're going to delay that synthesis until the essential amino acid is needed. Limited is going to be showing up in your bloodstream. So when you supply only isolucine, leucine, valine, branch chain aminos to the workout, which was the case in 90s and early 2000s, you're just delivering these three out of nine essential Aminos. So it's by far inferior usage. Essential amino acids are complete, BCAA incomplete essentials, basically three out of nine.

So essentially in your blend though, you are adding some leucine along with the essential amino acids to just get a little bit more. Except for the insulinogenic response, it does.

Have an insulin genic response. But you see at this time you maybe for your athletes, you don't want an insulin spike. For me, every bodybuilder, anybody that is training with the weights and wants to create anabolism and hypertrophy, we have to boost insulin. Insulin can be a best friend or a worst enemy. Best friend for the athletes that want to create hypertrophy. And dumping all these nutrients into the muscle cells of a working muscle is during a training. So I want to be high insulinmic during the workout? Yeah. So everything that potentiates insulin release just contribute to the whole equation.

Okay, got it. So during the workout you've got electrolytes, you've got essential amino acids. You said you have some, some creatine and glutamine in there and then some extra leucine, then this Vitargo Superstarch and then the electrolytes, you're sipping on that during the workout based on this theory of feeding the muscle groups, you're training with what's in your blood. And so that's between each set you're taking small doses of that. But based on all that, why wouldn't you also go into the actual workout with high blood levels of amino acids? Or are you using anything specific specific for pre workout?

For example, my pre workout I already put essential amino acids, the glutamine and leucine. This is separate shake. This is something that you drink 45 to 30 minutes before the workout. So I already saturated, but let me expand a little bit more just to touch the diet. This is anabolic phase, just a training. But my 24 hour diet, the way I structure it is I have a possibility of fat burning phase probably first thing in the morning on empty stomach, doing some cardio, being able to burn some body fat. And then I will have a maintenance meals throughout the day until I'm ready to have a workout. And these maintenance meals should be with your caloric requirements, not to lose, not to gain. This is just to maintain, you know, give enough energy to the body that you need for let's say three hours until your next meal. And it could be with the carbohydrates, it could be just ketogenic type, depends on the athlete. But this is considered maintenance phase. When I'm coming close to the anabolic phase, which would be my training meal before a workout would have to be specific. And this is when I would already go with pre workout anabolic meal which would be high protein, low fat and statute complex carbs. So I would already start to start releasing some slow carbohydrates right there, you know, saturating my blood with carbohydrate. And then 45 minutes after the meal, maybe 45 minutes before the workout. So meal is hour and a half before training. I would have this pre workout drink which saturate already essential aminos and leucine and glutamine, put the creatine, citrulline, everything else that I mentioned. So it's already there. My blood is already saturated. But if I don't take intra workout also I'm going to be depleting with each and every set and by the end of the workout it's not going to be a sufficient amount as I was talking about maximizing it. I want to maintain essential amino acid level, I want to maintain glucose level. That's why I add this intra workout that I'm sipping throughout the workout.

Right. It'd be interesting too to, I don't know if you've thought about this at all to consider the addition of ketone bodies for the glycogen sparing effect and also because of the, you know, the fuel availability for heart, for liver, for diet, for diaphragm. Have you looked into ketone body supplementation at all?

Yes, yes I did. I tried it myself and ketone salts and I actually even had a sample of ketone esters. But you know, of course I would never taste it again in my life because it was the grossest thing I've ever tried.

Yeah, they'll completely destroy the flavor of any smoothie or any drink that you add them to. But the interesting thing is they do provide an alternate fuel substrate. And the interesting thing is there's some research that have been done on blunting of overreaching or over training symptoms. When you add ketone esters into the equation, that could be due to its effect on inflammatory pathways, but it may be working on some other physiological pathways to actually reduce symptoms of overreaching or over training. Which is another reason I suspect it could be a decent addition to this stack that you're using.

It could be. I mean, I'm very open to it. I actually talked to Jan Daly from Optimum EFX and we did a seminar together and he was high on that. So adding some hexagonal ketones pre and inter workout could make very well sense, you know, to further enhance this, this plan. I was just satisfied with the results that I'm having. And really when you, when you're putting like 75 grams of glucose into a workout, right. It's a quite a bit of powder then adding, you know, amino acids. So to create isotonic solution, you, you have to drink like one liter and a half, sometimes two liters of water with it.

Yeah, that makes sense. You know, to play devil's advocate here, when we look at gastric emptying. Gastric emptying is going to influence and sometimes delay by 15 to 30 minutes what you consume in terms of the length of time that that actually takes to appear in the blood and make its way into the muscle fibers, as you've discussed. And so based on that, and also the fact that blood flow to the GI tract during the intense exercise particularly is reduced, and that could further increase the time it takes for things to show up in the blood. You know, I'm just curious, why not just take all this stuff before training rather than continue to supplement during training if it's gonna take a long time, based on gastrointestinal emptying, for it to appear in the bloodstream?

That was the whole theory from before that I had to consider it. And yes, but then I was saying, what is physiologically really happening? Think about this. Right now you have 20 grams of essential amino acids pre digested in an elemental state, ready for uptake. And you have 75 grams of dextrose into your stomach. Would it sit there really for 30 minutes before it goes into the bloodstream? You can very easily find out this if you bring yourself to hypoglycemic state. So let's say if you cause elevate your insulin, that would drop your blood sugar level down. If glucose is not released from the stomach, you will go hypoglycemic 100% for sure. Therefore, I realized glucose for sure would find a way into the blasting, regardless of even how hypertonic that drink would be. I understand that you're reading this gastric emptying studies and they would say it would be delayed, but it would not be completely inhibited. It would be slow leak of the glucose into the bloodstream, maintaining the blood sugar levels. And I can confirm this because I also use exogenous insulin to prove that point. If I would use it and the glucose would be stuck in the gut, I would go into deep hypoglycemic state, you know, but glucose does go into the bloodstream and maintains glycemia. So, you know, this is. I understand, I read the same studies and this is why I want to tell you, study have to be interpreted and then maybe challenged. So I understand all this stuff. This is what we have on the paper. But let me apply this because I always said that one gram of practice can be much heavier than ton of theory. You know, theorists, you know, would just have this on a paper. But did you really try it? So I'm always for. And Ben Pakowski as well, we use that slogan, challenge everything, you know. So yeah, I understand that this gastric emptying can be delayed and I consider it. But then I say if it's delayed completely, it's inhibited completely. Now you're training usually one hour or hour and a half for pro bodybuilders. So even if it's delayed 20, 30 minutes like you said, I would still find the use because you're going to train for an hour and a half. So eventually it's going to be released. But from my practice, I think I said this in the beginning of the interview, the delay, really, I found it three to five minutes in reality.

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Now also, the post workout nutrition, from what I understand, you're also doing a post workout kind of shake that is of similar composition to what we've discussed, like the creatine. But I believe you shift to something like a whey protein, continue to include the Vitargo starch post workout and then some additional glutamine. Is that correct?

Yeah, I mean, so to complete this hyper anabolic state, again, I say hyper anabolic. So maximize everything. I would continue to deliver a sufficient amount of protein to ensure protein synthesis, muscle protein synthesis, and I would continue to deliver a carbohydrate to replenish glycogen both in liver and muscle as that anabolic window of opportunity. It is the highest is really in about an hour after the workout, even though now there are some studies that say this is just a myth, it doesn't work well.

Yeah, that's what Alan Argon is now arguing that the recommendation to spike insulin post workout is somewhat trivial based on the fact that if you've had a pre workout meal or in your case an intra workout meal, that the insulinogenic effect of the pre workout or the intra workout meal dictates that your insulin levels remain elevated for approximately two hours post exercise. Higher if you have essential amino acids in your bloodstream. Therefore the prioritization of a carbohydrate and protein based post workout meal becomes pretty unimportant really unless and this appears to be the exception, unless you are going to be working out again within about eight hours, in which case replenishment of muscle glycogen levels is going to be enhanced to a certain extent with that post workout feeding. What are your thoughts on that argument?

I completely disagree because regardless of spiking the insulin before an inter workout, further spiking insulin post workout be detrimental to protein synthesis and glycogen repletion. Of course I'm talking maximizing. He says it's not necessary, but it's maybe not necessary for a pencil neck in university and just considering, okay, you don't really need it. The same thing like how much protein do we need? Do we really need this much protein RDA for protein, 0.8 grams per kilo. We don't need more. That's what you read. We are not talking a reference range for an average person that is not doing intense workouts or for pro bodybuilders or for anybody they want to maximize results. So if you ask me and gentleman that you mentioned and he is ready to bet and I would be ready to bet my life, what would be more anabolic spiking still insulin post workout as well having easily accessible amino acids from let's say hydrolyzed whey protein that would be available, you know, shortly carbohydrate intake. You can even take some fructose at that time, you know, with your polysaccharides. So you need to replenish liver glycogen as well. So 30, 30% of your carbohydrate intake could be fructose, 70% glucose. He would replenish the glycogen as you said. If I train second time a day, that would be more effective for him. Yeah, that's very important because you need to be ready for the next workout. But even if you don't work out second time, what would be more Glycogen replenishing. If you do take carbohydrates post workout with protein or if you don't take it because you already had sufficient amount intra workout. These gentlemen have never done two extremes. I have done it. I already experimented this because a lot of people would have that idea. I don't really need a post workout. So I tested, I mean I'm not talking about two, three, five people. I had probably over a thousand clients in last 20 something years and my athletes, top level professionals and amateur bodybuilders that their goal is really that physique enhancement. How much more muscle mass we can create, how much more body fat we can lose, how much glycogen we can super compensate unequivocally. I would claim this not to argue with the gentleman, it just from my experience throughout the 30 something years of training, post workout anabolic window matters. Even if you supersaturate nutrients before an intra workout like I do, that's additional, that's adding to the equation and 1 plus 1 is 2 plus 1 is 3. So I would always want a 3 rather than 2 if I want to maximize it.

Yeah, that makes and obviously it seemed to be working for you and the people that you coach quite a bit. Now one other thing before I actually ask you a little bit about training. Here would be something that's getting a lot of attention right now in the literature is carnosine, which is technically a dipeptide, an amino acid that's honestly it's often recommended to be taken in isolation so that it doesn't compete for absorption with some of these other amino acids like essential amino acids or whey. And from what I understand you actually do use carnosine to a certain extent. But I'm curious about how you using or timing something like carnosine in this equation or if that's not true and you're not using it.

Yeah, I do use it actually it was popular believe it or not even in 80s in Eastern European countries. First time I talked to again Charles Polikin and I talked to him about it and he says yeah, he heard about it and absolutely improve exercise performance by all means and then have all these anti inflammatory, antioxidative, anti glycation properties and everything. So he would always recommend it. But using a carnosine itself would have to go through the gut to be broken down again into the bethelanine and histidine, you know. So what would be more productive? This is why this bethalanine supplementation came about. And as I said, I Use it pre workout because I do believe in essential amino acid formulation already. You have a histidine and you're adding Beth Alanine would be considerably better than actually using carnosine itself. I do have a Karnosine. I use it from Designer Health. I would use 1000mg a day separately in the morning time, you know, with my breakfast without my intra workout supplementation. But I would use betalonine and histidine combination rather than having a carnosine itself.

Yeah, and by the way, when it comes to the actual absorption of carnosine, I've been digging into it a little bit. I started to look into it when some company sent me something called Lactigo, which is carnosine based lactic acid buffer, but it's a transdermal formula for transdermal administration of carnosine. When I looked at the literature on this, it actually looks like transdermal bioavailability of carnosine is pretty impressive. Have you looked into a transdermal application?

Not for carnosine. I never have seen that one. That could be interesting. Especially if it's efficient delivery then. Yes, because it bypasses the gut.

Exactly.

That would be something. This is the first time I ever heard.

Yeah. Apparently they've done a lot of research in the racehorsing industry and now it's kind of spilling over into the sports performance industry. But yeah, transdermal carnosine gel appears to be very well absorbed compared to oral absorption. So something to look into for the carnosine effect. And that would be ideally applied pre workout, really. Especially if you're doing a highly glycolytic workout such as bodybuilding, for example. It's something I wish had existed when I was messing around with bodybuilding because I probably would have used it quite a bit. Now, speaking of bodybuilding and the actual workouts themselves, I would love to touch a bit on what your actual training, training looked like in, in the peak of your career or what it looks like now in terms of like what, what a weekly split would look like for you. And also, you know, if you want to. I know, I know you, you are, you're well known, you, you and our friend Ben Pakolski for having some, some pretty soul crushing leg days, for example. So I'm curious if you could walk me through like what a weekly split would look like for you. And then also, for example, you know, if you want to dig into an actual workout and what your workout style looks like, you know, if you could, if you could walk us through the details of something like a leg day.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so first let me tell you again, if you want to maximize everything, which I always do, I would create a workout that would also be maximally beneficial. So used to be, if you remember back in the day, go heavy or go home. Hypertrophy is only achieved with the heavy duty training. You know, more weight, more weight. Arnold Lou Ferino Pumping IRON I don't know if you follow this. Mike Menzer, Arthur Jones it would be just like myofibro. Hypertrophy is the only way to go then. Throughout the years, I've met a lot of other athletes, bodybuilders, phenomenal. Sergeant Bray, for example, legendary bodybuilder with one of the best physiques in the world. You know, Mohammed Benaziza, Thierry Pastel. I actually trained with them and I've seen that they're applying more this sarcoplasmic kind of hypertrophy specific training.

Right. And we should clarify for people, myofibril hypertrophy is when you stimulate your muscles by lifting heavy weights. It causes trauma to the individual muscle fibers. So the idea is there's an overcompensation that would increase the volume and the density of the injured myofibrils. Whereas sarcoplasmic hypertrophy would occur when the actual volume of what's called, or sarcoplasmic fluid. It's the fluid that contains ATP and glycogen and creatine and water that surrounds these myofibrils. If the volume of that increases, which can also occur as a response of training, it would add muscle volume. It wouldn't grow fibers, but it would add muscle volume. However, sarcoplasmic hypertrophy would theoretically be associated with less functional mass because. Because you're not improving strength per se, because there's no change in the actual fiber composition. It's just a change in the fluid composition around the muscle. Is that a fair explanation of the difference in sarcoplasmic versus myofibril or hypertrophy?

Yeah, very accurate. And you pinpointed. Now, we do understand that pro bodybuilders do not need to perform and so increasing strength is not a primary goal.

Right. It's just all about how big the muscle was.

Hypertrophy, hypertrophy is the main concern, therefore, I mean, sarcoplasmic hypertrophy really finds the way in pro bodybuilding, which also, let's face it safely, body is not designed to be pounded like Mr. Ronnie Coleman. He was just in Joe Rogan podcast. I'm sure you saw it. One of the greatest bodybuilders of all time for sure. But he had like 13 surgeries, hip replacement, back surgeries, neck surgeries, all that stuff. So now as a 56 years old, looking back when we are younger, you would just be careless and you just go heavy, go heavier and push to the limits. Well, human body is not really designed to be pounding like this. So taking care of it, replenishing as much as you can and maybe applying exactly what I am doing, this anabolic phase. So supplying the nutrients into a workout so you don't have this crazy catabolic activity once or twice a day. If you're training two times a day like most of the pro bodybuilders, catabolic state, let's say medically is always alarming. If you are in catabolism in the hospital, they would try to bring you out of it as soon as possible. So that's another thing that my father told me. Do you think it's healthy breaking down constantly, repeatedly, daily, twice a day and so on? It's not going to affect your even lifespan. We don't know the studies and theories, but I understand. I would try to prevent catabolism as much as possible. So in my training I would like to touch myofibril stimulus by doing two exercises, usually with a little bit heavier weight. Progressive overload. I would for sure 100% warm up properly and I would in the first exercise, you know, to describe for you, doesn't matter if it's chest back, whichever muscle I would insist on, as Ben Pakuski calls muscle, centric movement, not movement centric. So you're focusing on the muscle. So eccentrically you go slow, lowering with the muscle contraction, lengthening your muscle with the control, pausing and then squeezing your way up so you don't explode. As you don't just do explosive concentric, you squeeze concentrically as well. This way I would bring the blood in, I would send information to my nervous system. Okay, I'm going to be doing this. So I'm preparing it. On the second set I'm going to do progressive overload. I'm going to put a little bit more weight. I'm going to still go slow, eccentric, slow, concentric. Now after two sets that I brought the blood into the targeting muscle, I can maybe further load the weight and maybe do something challenging. 10, 12 repetitions on the third set where I would go slow, eccentrically but explosively concentrically. So I'm going to go for that power movement. I'M going to go for a heavy weight and a following fourth set. I would for sure go all out. So I believe that right now I'm prepared, I'm ready. So I can now push to the limit in that one set, all out. So usually six to eight, maybe 10 reps, maximum rep range, possibly with your training partner spotting you, so having a couple of force reps. So this would be first exercise for a muscle group that I could go all out, but I prepared myself contrary to, let's say Mike Menzer, Arthur Jones and Dorian Yates. They would just warm up one set and then next set would be all out, which I think is injury waiting to happen.

Right. So your tempo is basically a pretty even up down movement, but with a hold at the top. Almost like if you were to look at seconds, like a three second up, two second hold, three second negative.

Yeah, actually I would go probably five seconds down, one second hold, three seconds concentric and two seconds big contraction.

Okay. So either way you're really focusing on the eccentric contraction quite a bit.

Yeah, I do. But you see a lot of people when you're warming up. I think the slow concentric as well would be very safe and productive way to establish mind muscle connection, to really feel that muscle. I mean, let's face it, a lot of people train and they don't really feel the muscle. But if I'm telling you doing a bench press and I just tell you bench press it, your mind is telling your body to your chest and your shoulders and your triceps just to push that barbell off your chest. But if I tell you, okay, now you're not doing bench press, now I want you just to squeeze your pecs as hard as you can and contraction of the pecs is going to actually raise the barbell and you can have that crazy, not just tension, but maximal tension. People are talking about time under the tension that they miss out time under maximal tension. There is a different level of contraction. And this is why I always tell my people in a gym and in the seminars, I want you to squeeze the juice out of the lemon. I want you to squeeze like a maniac. This kind of muscle contraction I want you to apply, that's important to highlight.

I mean, that's why I respect you and Ben Pakolski and this whole idea, you know, Ben calls it muscle intelligence, but you know, this idea of action actually paying attention to and squeezing, being hyper aware of the muscles that you're actually targeting as a way to engage in this. Well, I mean you get both a Myofibrillar and a sarcoplasmic response from that focus. But so many people will just do the actual movement without this hyper focus and hyper awareness of the actual muscle being used.

They absolutely would. Now also you were talking about tempo, you know, how many seconds down, how many seconds up, you know, I. Okay, now myofibril hypertrophy training. I just said the first set, let me just finish with the second set. Second set. Now for the same muscle group, I would change the angle, change the type of exercise, you know, so I don't need to warm up anymore. So like my first set would be already 12 repetitions, you know, maybe to the maximum. The protocol that I would go slow, eccentric and slow concentric on the first set, but the second set I can go slow and explosive. And then on the third set I can go all out. So it would pretty much be four sets on the first exercise to five and three sets on the second exercise. That would be enough for me to achieve myofibril hypertrophy in this muscle. Now I move into the sarcoplasmic and sarcoplasmic is really cell volumization, the crazy pump, you know, as much difference that I can variety that I can apply. So I change the grip angle, stance, tempo. I utilize a lot of variable tempo. Like let's say if you're going to do 10 repetitions and some exercise you can go 10 seconds eccentrically on the first rep, nine on the second, eight on the third, seven and so on. That can be in eccentric phase. It can also be done in concentric phase. It can also be done in a peak contraction in maximally shortened position. I love to do these kind of things because it's not common, it's not like I want to apply this just to be different. I apply it because I experienced it. The great benefits of absolutely mind boggling pumps and mind muscle connection and feeling that muscle pretty much ripping through the skin. So my giant sets would be usually four different exercises for a muscle group or maybe more if you're more advanced. And then I would change parameters, I would change the tempo, I would change the angle, I would change the number of repetitions. You know, just be as creative as you possibly can. Obviously with my athletes I look at their physique and I see what is the priority. So let's say we are training chest and we really need to focus on upper inner chest or lower outer or whatever else. I would design a workout to specify that area more. But if you are fairly equally developed and aesthetically Pleasing, you don't have any disbalances, then you just bring the intensity through the roof and go for crazy muscle pumps.

Wow, man. It's a pretty intense way to train. But this idea of moving more slowly, especially in the eccentric phase and focusing on the muscle that you work is a model that I've seen to prove itself over and over again again in folks like you and Ben. And I think when combined with some of these very cool ideas of taking advantage of hyperemia by delivering high blood levels of essential amino acids, combining that with something like creatine, high molecular weight starch like Vitargo, some electrolytes, and then also including something very similar pre workout and in that post workout window, prioritizing some of the things you prioritize like a more whey protein based source, again, a high molecular weight starch like Vitargo, more creatine, glutamine. It's a, a, it's a, it's a pretty cool recipe for muscle growth and hypertrophy. And what I'm going to do for folks who are listening in is I'll put the formulas for Milos shakes and some of the research that we discussed. I brought up a lot of research, a lot of articles on everything from ketone esters to transdermal carnosine to this concept of hyperemia. And I'm going to link to all that research in the shownotes as well. If you just go to bitcoin. Greenfieldfitness.com Milos M I L O S Milos, anything else that you want to share with us or share about your approach to hypertrophy or this idea of feeding the muscles that you're training?

I think I touched that subject quite extensively. I appreciate you giving me opportunity to talk in detail. I do want to mention one thing because I've seen that you have a great essential amino acid product. And a lot of times I tell people when they ask me what would be number one most important nutritious supplement for humankind, I said this zillion times, essential amino acids. And of course, what do you mean? You know, so when we talk about high protein intake, when we talk about bodybuilders and athletes, you know, taking so much chicken and turkey and fish and beef and whatever, right? Whey protein. Why do we take that? We are taking to get these essential amino acids from that particular protein so people don't maybe realize how essential and how much needed essential amino acids really are, you know. So to this day I find that a lot of people just like, you know, put it under the Rug and then they don't really think about it. So every time when I talk to even my relatives that don't know anything about nutrition, they don't like to eat protein or vegetarians. They don't. Okay, let me give you this supplement. Essential amino acids. Just take with you normal food that you're normally taking and I guarantee you that your health, your lean body mass and everything is going to dramatically increase. You're going to feel better because now at least you're going to have that building blocks that you are missing. Of course if you're vegetarian, you don't have that all the animal complete protein, you know, so it's a huge benefit to you. But for whatever reason in today's society protein intake is just diminishing and people are not eating it, you know, so for all these people, they are not taking it. First thing I would say you have a tremendous essential amino acid. Of course we're not in the business anything I want listeners to understand I'm not promoting Ben's product because I have some interest, but I've seen what it is and it's absolutely something that I would highly recommend. Whoever is listening is not taking essential amino acids just for the hell of it. Get it for one month. Don't change anything in your diet. Just add to it and see what happens.

Yeah, I mean I realize it's expensive, but I'm up to 30 to 40 grams grams a day now and, and feel I've been doing that since kind of this stuck at home COVID pandemic thing. And I've been combining that with blood flow restriction training, kettlebell training. I've gained muscle, I haven't lost muscle. And, and yeah, I think they're like the, they're like the Swiss army knife for anybody who's an exercise enthusiast. So. And I'm glad to see that, that a somebody like yourself is, is using this approach with these as well. And since just looking into your research, I've started to try dosing them during the actual workout and I'm definitely noticing a profound pickup in, in the actual set performance and even the number of reps performed. And you know, part of that might be I'm also, I'm, I'm doing your whole formula. I'm trying out the creatine as well. So I realize that might have a, have an impact as well and for sure. So, so I'm gonna link to all this you guys in the show notes@bengreenfulfitness.com Milo Milos we're out of time. But thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing all this stuff with us, man. It's absolutely fascinating.

Thank you so much, Ben, for the opportunity. I love your show and I follow you. So maybe some of the time in the future we do it again.

Yeah, that'd be fun. Maybe I'll come do leg day with you someday.

Please, please do.

All right. All right, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Milos signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week.

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