Muscle Building Myths Busted: What Works & What Doesn't For Lifelong Muscle, What Fitness Trends Actually Work, Desert Island Workout Routines & More With MindPump's Sal Di Stefano.

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Fitness is interesting because it's probably the most unassuming form of self improvement that I think exists. At some point, you're gonna want to stop working out because you're want to stop hating yourself. You're going to want to stop eating right because it's a punishment. It has to turn into a form of self care and self love, and until it does that, you'll never be consistent.

The book is good. Although I bet that if Adam and Justin put their heads together, they could probably do a pretty darn good coloring book.

Oh, my God.

Performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. All right, folks, so you probably have heard my guest on today's podcast before, because I've recorded podcasts with him on his show, and he's been on my show quite a few times. His name is Sal D. Stefano. Sal Di Stefano. Sal D. Steph. I don't. I don't know, Sal. How do you say your last name and, like, enunciate the proper syllables correctly?

You actually said it right the second time. Distefano.

Sal Destefano. Yeah. It confuses me, though, because. Because I have some friends who are named Distefano who spell it as, like, one word, but you spell it as, like, two words, like Di Stefano.

Yeah, that's the. I think when people immigrate to this country after a few generations, they put it all together. But the proper way, I guess, is di and then space.

Wait, did you. Did you immigrate to this company? To this company. If I can talk today. Geez, I need to get some coffee down the house. Did you actually, like, do the whole, like, like sail over here in a boat and go and wave at the Statue of Liberty thing?

My parents did. My parents actually flew here, but my parents are both immigrants, and so I was born here. I'm first generation American.

That doesn't count. You can't. Can't play that card. You got to actually have been on the boat and waved at the Statue of Liberty and started your little pizza shop and put in all the sweat and blood and then eventually, like, traveled in a covered wagon over to California where you live now. Like, otherwise, dude, you can't talk about your ancestors in that manner.

My bad.

Well, the reason I wanted. So, actually I should finish saying, by the way, for you guys who don't know, Sal is the host of this fabulous fitness podcast called Mind Pump. I've been on their show before. And Sal and his homies, Adam and Justin, and also Doug at mindpump have been on my show before. And so what I'll do is I'll just link to all the shows we've done before because they're super fun. And I'll link to everything Sal and I wind up talking about today. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Sal, but Sal, you're here without your homies. How's that feel?

Oh, that's good. You know, Ben, I love you. You're one of my favorite. One of my favorite people in the world. Obviously, everybody knows how smart you are, but you're also.

He's building me up. He's getting. He's getting to the butt.

Yeah. No, no, no, no, It's. It's true. He's been real. In real life, he's a really, really good person. He's definitely different, but he's also a very good person and fun to talk to, always fun to hang out with. And so I enjoy this, man. I think you and I are probably among my hope. My co hosts, probably most similar would be you and I. You and I are probably the most similar versus, you know, Adam and you or Justin and you.

You know what? I. To be honest with you, I get that sense, Sal, because it seems like you and I kind of have this bent towards. Towards really wanting to get like, to geek out. Like, we were probably kind of like the. I don't know, like the boys who were less likely to get laid because we had dirty glasses on and pocket protectors.

Yeah. I mean, I have a mouthpiece on me, so I got laid pretty easily. But I agree with what you're saying, though. It makes perfect sense.

Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, for those of you listening, Sal, he does kind of like a lot of times come in as a little bit of like the brains, the nutrition expert, the supplements expert, the guy who kind of knows some of the nitty, gritty, cutting edge stuff that's going on in fitness over there at Mind Pump. And of course, he was the one of the crew to actually write a book. I don't think your friends over there, Justin or Adam wrote a book yet, did they, Sal?

No, but, yeah, it was something that I did. But I mean, this is information that we've been talking about and preaching for forever. And you know, what's that saying? There's many paths up the mountain, but they all lead to the same place. I'm sure I'm butchering it, but that sounds good because we all Trained everyday people for decades. And we all come from different backgrounds. I mean, Justin is the athletic sports guy, played college ball, and Adam was a personal trainer like I was. But Adam had much more of a business drive. My drive was much more about figuring out, you know, what's going on with the human body. But we all cared about our clients equally, I would say. And because we all did it for so long, we all came to the same conclusions, although from different, you know, kind of different perspectives. And so what you read in the book, the Resistance Training Revolution, is something that I think most fitness coaches and trainers who've been doing this for, you know, 10 plus years will tell you. And it's also counter to the what you'll hear in mainstream fitness media or mainstream fitness advice. It's totally counter. And so I thought, okay, I would like to get this information out there. I think I do a good job of communicating in a way to where I can connect to the average person. And let me make the case. Let me make this case so we can kind of get this ship moving in the right direction. Because the fitness space is just. For too long now, it's been going in the wrong direction.

Yeah, the book is good. Although I bet that if Adam and Justin put their heads together, they could probably do a pretty darn good, good coloring book.

Oh, my God.

If they really worked hard and were able to use like a size 38 font per page and maybe take out the markers and the coloring pencils, they could probably give you a run for the money.

Call it like, oh, man, I can't wait to. I can't wait to tell them that you said this. This is going to be the resistance.

Training pop up guide with Adam and Justin. They don't listen to my show, I hope. Otherwise I'll, I'll. I'll probably. I'll get my ass kicked in some way when I come down there. I have no cl.

No, we all have a. We all have a relationship with you where we poke. Poke fun at each other. So it's a good time.

Yes, yes. What do they call it, bro humor? Tearing each other down to build each other up. Anyways, though, so. So your book was good, dude, but, like, there's some stuff that you don't get into in, in the book, per se that I was like. Well, this, this book is amazing. Like, like, as you alluded to, it's chock full of a bunch of the type of stuff you guys talk about on your podcast, like all these myths in the fitness industry and, you know, and as the subtitle of the book implies, the no cardio way to burn f age proof your body in only 60 minutes a week. But I mean, you actually, you move and exercise more than 60 minutes a week, right?

I do. I'm a fanatic, though, right. This is what I love doing. And that subtitle was written specifically to get to the part of the population that I'm really trying to reach. I'm not trying to.

Lazy people.

Yeah, well, look, I'm not trying to preach to the fitness fanatics. I don't need to do that. I don't need to talk to what I'm doing. I'm trying to get to my aunt and my neighbor and the guy across the street who at most, if we do a damn good job, at most, we'll work out two or three days a week consistently. That's the most we could ever hope for. So what can I do? How can I talk to them and how can I convince them that the way that they should exercise? Because they're only gonna pick one form of exercise. They're only gonna do it two or three days a week, and most of them wanna lose weight. And most of their chronic health issues are connected to obesity or overconsumption, although it's much more complex than that. Right. What can I talk to them about? And so I'm trying to reach them. And I know that that's something that the average person will go and go, oh, yeah, yeah, I'd like that. I'd like to work out less than 60%.

That makes sense. Although I'm gonna tell a guy across the street what you said about him, about how he's lazy and demotivated. But yeah, anyways, though, so. So you, though, I mean, you know, I was a personal trainer. You were a personal trainer. There's obviously tons of personal trainers, and obviously Instagram is just saturated with not personal trainers trying to pretend they're personal trainers. And every personal trainer, I think, kind of has a unique approach or at least likes to think that they have their own flavor of training. But I find some histories more intriguing and others not. But you personally, you know, once you did come over there on the boat from Italy and you kind of made some money with your pizza shop and, and got that under your belt. At what point did you get into personal training, man?

Well, I. I had a. I mean, I. Right away when I picked up my first weight, I loved it. I was 14 years old. My dad had a 14 set in the backyard.

Okay. Yeah, I think I was probably 13 or 14 too. It was a 10 pound set of dumbbells from Gart Sports. And not to interrupt your story too intensively, but I, I didn't know what to do with them. All I knew is I wanted to get better at tennis and tennis players seem to need to have like big shoulders and strong arms. So I would literally like lay on my bed on my belly and use my bed as almost like a. I didn't know what a preacher curl bench was at the time, but I'd lay on my bed on my stomach and do bicep curls with 10 pound dumbbells. Like a preacher curl.

Yeah. I mean, see again, this is where you and I are so similar. I think we find something we love and we become just obsessed with. That's what I did. I started working out, became totally obsessed with the human body, how it worked. I mean, as a 14, 15 year old, I would hitch a ride to the library and this is of course before the Internet. And I'd get all the books I could on biology and chemistry. I'd read Soviet studies on muscle building and training. By the way, those are some of the coolest studies that you'll ever read.

Two Door Boompa, the old periodization book.

Oh, very cool. Yeah. So I'd read as much as I could and I just became obsessed with it. And then When I turned 18, I was old enough to be a personal trainer and they wouldn't let you train people before that. So I walked into a gym and got a job as a trainer and immediately just fell in love with it and did very, very well. Within four months, I was managing the fitness department of a big box gym. So I had trainers working under me. And then by the time I was 19, I was a general manager, grand opening some of the biggest big box clubs in California for 24 Hour Fitness. And I did that for a while and loved it. Was very successful. And then right around 22, I went off to work on my own and I became an entrepreneur. I started a wellness and fitness studio. So it was a small studio that offered personal training. I had massage therapy in there, I had acupuncture in there and gut and hormone testing in there. And the goal was to merge fitness with wellness. Although I knew very little about wellness, I knew mostly about fitness. That was kind of the goal. And I did that for a long time, up until we did mind pump. And what drove me more than anything, you know, of course I loved working out for myself and I loved, you know, changing my body and all that stuff. But really what drove me was my passion for people and I found this way that I could help them. And fitness is interesting because it's probably the most unassuming form of self improvement that I think exists. Like, you know, you could, you could find a spiritual practice you could do. You could do books that tell you how to be a better person. You could go do motivational courses, but try to go up to the average person and say, hey, I'd like to, you know, show you the spiritual practice that's been people. You might. You're going to turn off about 50% of the people you talk to. But everybody's kind of interested in looking better and being more fit, regardless of where they come from.

And yeah, not a lot of people will like, I guess, like hire an expert to take them to a park and help them to read the Bible. Right, Exactly. They'll definitely do the same thing with a kettlebell.

Oh, yeah, exactly. So it was just a super unassuming form of self improvement. And sure, you can enter into it in the wrong way and say, I just want to look better. That's most people's goal. But if you stick to it long enough, you realize, wow, this is a powerful form of self improvement. I mean, it teaches you acceptance at some point. For I'll use myself as an example. When I was 14, my idols were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco Colombo and all these bodybuilders.

Geez, you, you, you were ahead of me. I was Andre Agassi, whose posters were on my wall. Andre Agassi had two posters. I, of course, had an Anna Kournikova poster, but I had to keep that one a little bit secret from my parents. The old hot Russian tennis player chick. I had David, the Admiral from the Spurs. Geez, why am I blanking on his name? The basketball player. The Admiral. The Spurs? Yeah, yeah.

You're asking the non basketball.

Oh, geez. David Robinson. David Robinson. And NBA aficionados are flipping over in their graves right now. And, and then I had Pete Sampras, so those are mine. But you were bodybuilders.

Yeah, and, and it's. But here's what. Where I learned acceptance, right? At some point, I figure I learned, oh, these, these guys used anabolic steroids. Oh, these guys have genetics that, you know, zero, you know,.001% of the population have. Oh, I don't have the bone structure that they have, you know, so. But I continued anyway and I accepted my body as it was and what I can do with it. You also Accept, you know, failure, right? When you work out and you do it long enough, you learn that you suck at stuff until you practice the hell out of it. And then you get good at it. And you have to, you have to make peace with that and accept that. There's also body acceptance. If you stick with it long enough and you start to get older, I don't care how fit you are, your performance is going to decline. By the time you hit 60, 70, and so on, you're going to notice declines in performance, but you do it anyway. It teaches you discipline. It teaches you how to change your relationship with physical pain and discomfort. When I would get a new client and I would train them, the look on their face when they would feel their muscles burn and they drop the weight, I actually would have clients throw weights on the floor. Oh, my God. And it's, what's wrong? Burns. I think I hurt myself. Like, they have a different relationship with discomfort and pain than somebody who does it on a regular basis. So it's this really profound self improvement tool. And so I fell in love with the fact that I could help people through it. And what was cool about that, Ben, was it drove me to constantly be more effective at what I did. And I don't mean, like, I'm going to be more effective at getting clients to lose 30 pounds right away. That's how I started. But eventually what it turned into was, wait a minute, I can get people to lose 30 pounds. All they got to do is do everything I say, but then they gain it back. Why is nobody doing this forever? Why is this so hard to be consistent? Am I communicating this the wrong way? Are meal plans not a successful long term approach? Maybe the people I'm talking to are never going to be fitness fanatics. Like, what do I do now? And so it drove me to really get good at what I do, how I communicate it. In fact, that's what you hear when you listen to my podcast is you hear three trainers that figured this out and that's how we communicate it. So can we go in the weeds and deep with certain things? We definitely can. Can we talk like, you know, your bodybuilder, fitness fanatics? We definitely can. But when we're usually. The way that we're usually communicating is to the average person, the average person.

Many of whom we've already insulted by telling them that they're lazy and they can't handle pain.

But no, it's not lazy. You know what it is? It's not that they're lazy. It's that they have not developed a skill of discipline in this particular way. That's all it is. And in many ways they've developed skills of discipline and other aspects of their life. But in this particular one, and there's many reasons why, I believe the main reason is the way that they. The root of what drives people into fitness will never work until you change that particular root driver. For example, people go into fitness because they hate their bodies. They don't like the way they look, they think they're unattractive, there's some insecurity, and that'll get you started. But it'll never keep you consistent because at some point you're gonna want to stop working out because you're gonna want to stop hating yourself, you're gonna want to stop eating right, because it's a punishment. It has to turn into a form of self care and self love. And until it does that, you'll never be consistent. It eventually has to be like, because look, how many times have you heard this from people, right? Like, hey, how's your workout going? I know you were doing it consistently, oh, I had to stop because I just want to enjoy my life, you know? And you think to yourself, like, what do you mean you want to enjoy your life? It improves the quality of life. But the way they were going about it was, it's punishment. It's I hate myself, I hate my body, I don't like it, I'm disgusting. And eventually you rebel against that. Eventually you say, I'm done with this, I'm done with the stress. I'm done with the stress of trying to eat right. Let me reward myself or let me rebel, which looks like they're going to binge or whatever. So this is one of the problems, I think.

Yeah, I agree. And like, the motivation of self love, self fulfillment, confidence, being able to handle what life might throw at you, being able to have motivation when you get out of bed in the morning, being able to have the energy that you want in the afternoon, being able to sleep better because you're not restless at night. Those are the type of things that I think keep people in it for the long game versus I want to look sexy. And the reason for that is that that usually keeps people going in fitness, I find, until maybe 30, 35 years old. But it's kind of like marriage, right? Like if you get married and the main thing that really keeps you together with your partner is his or her banging body that you really look forward to having sex with. And maybe the fact that you're really proud when you can walk hand in hand with them along the beach and you know the other chicks or the other dudes are checking out your partner. Like, that's gonna last. Sorry, all you young whippersnappers out there, I can tell you right now that's gonna last only X number of years into your marriage before you realize that there needs to be, like, a deep spiritual intertwining between you and your lover and, like, a legacy that you're building a family around and. And deep fulfillment in your relationship that goes way beyond the surface aesthetics. And so it's kind of like marriage. It's like, you know, just. Just lifting weights to look good. You know that that's part of the reason that people get into it. It's a cool. It's cool bonus. But I don't know what you think, Sal. I. I think that's not enough to keep people in for the long game. You know what I'm saying?

No, because. Because all of us succumb to age. You know what it looks like, Ben, when people stick to that, when they stick to the. It's because I like the way I look and I'm gonna make myself look good. It eventually turns into abusing yourself with plastic surgery, with drugs, with just denying reality, and it's a very depressing place. Versus. Versus. This is improving the quality of life. I'm taking care of myself. Look, I tell you what. You talk to anybody, there's two types of people that work out for over 10 years consistently. It's either the dysfunctional, obsessive people. I'm not talking about that because that's an unhealthy way to do it. For example, there was a study that came out of Stanford a long time ago that said that literally said or showed that having poor relationships with the people around you is as bad for your health as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. So if you're so fanatical about exercise and diet that you eschew the relationships around you because you're obsessed with it, you don't go anywhere. You don't go to birthdays. You don't talk with or hang out with your partner because it's all about my workouts. Well, now you're trading one for the other. Yeah, you might be working out, but now you don't have good relationships. And so you're actually not improving your health. You're actually taking away from your health. So I'm not talking about that dysfunctional group. I'm talking about the healthy side of people who do this for over 10 years, you ask them, why do you do this so consistently? And I guarantee you it makes me look good. Won't make the top five. What it usually is is it's a ment boy, it really helps me mentally, it helps me emotionally, it helps me center myself. I love the discipline. I like the way it makes me feel. You know, one of the, one of the most understated, and this is very sad, one of the most understated values of consistent proper activity and exercise has nothing to do with the physical changes, has everything to do with the emotional and mental effects. I mean, by the way, studies now are clear with this when they compare exercise to medications for mild to moderate anxiety and depression, exercise is as effective and oftentimes the studies as they get longer show that they actually become more effective. You don't build a tolerance, there's no negative side effects. When it's done properly, if anything, it actually improves in its effectiveness. Unlike medications which over times tend toyou start to develop tolerances. Nobody talks about this, but this is the real benefit. That's again, I'll go back to that self improvement, like you stick to it long enough and there's a lot of self improvement that comes from fitness and exercise and it's never communicated. And I know why. It doesn't sell supplements, it doesn't sell, you know, products as much as me saying to you right now, follow my program or buy my product or whatever, and in 60 days you're gonna look hot and sexy. Yeah, I know that sells better. But you know, we're trying to do it the right way and I'm trying to do it in a way that's entertaining and compelling so that I can compete with the other guys. You know what I'm saying?

I want to get into just, just so people don't think we're get, we're going to be all woo woo and ethereal. This whole podcast. I want to get into some of the practical nitty gritties of muscle gain, muscle maintenance, and even some of these popular biohacks that are out there and what you think about them and potentially some of the both the smart and the dumb things going on in the fitness industry. But you know, if I, if I could put a little pink bow on this, you know, I personally was in that category for a long time, either working out because I wanted to look good and was obsessed with the way that I looked, which was like back in my bodybuilding days, or because I was obsessed with performance and that Would have been like my triathlon days where, you know, I would even, you know, make, make an excuse, right, to like, whatever, cut short the Thanksgiving meal to go out on my four hour bike ride because I'm a pro triathlete, baby, I get paid $1,000 check, oh, once every seven months or so if I happen to, you know, make it to fourth place on a podium. Therefore I can go out and exercise all I want and somehow justify it to my wife and my family that I'm like making a living doing this. And, and even throughout that time slipped into episodes where I just exercise for escapism or exercise because I was exercising to eat and eating to exercise. I've been through it all. You name whatever might appear in a psychological manual for an exercise or even an eating disorder. And I've probably been through that personally. We don't have time to get into all that stuff on the podcast, but I can tell you right now, like, with, with my fitness routine right now, I work out to feel good and to be able to play family tennis with my family and to be able to go on hikes and to pack, you know, deer out of the mountains after I've shot it with the bow. I rarely look at myself in the mirror because I just don't care. It's like, I know that my body looks okay, but, you know, unless I'm doing something, you know, let's face it, we know guys like me, you know, part of our business on Instagram, right? Take off our shirt, flex on Instagram and like that, that's part of the success piece. Yet, you know, at home, wandering around the house, I'm not stopping in front of the mirror to flex or anything like that. Like, I just don't care anymore. For me it's about life and fulfillment and satisfaction. And for me now I'm also more motivated than ever to work out because it's self love, it's self care, and the reason behind it is no longer selfish, but instead focus on ultimate meaning and purpose and fulfillment and impact and presence. And so, yeah, I think it's a really, really important thing for people to think about. But like I mentioned, I do also. Well, I should say one last thing. If you want to know what it's going to look like if you do, stay married to aesthetics. And I don't know if you agree with me on this, Sal, for aesthetics, for fitness, for the rest of your life, just Google Grandma from Something about Mary and that's who you're gonna be when you're 60s still grasping at straws, still trying to dye your hair and tan your skin and get your six pack and do your breast implants or your breast explants or whatever it is that you're gonna do. And trust me, you'll get to a certain point where everything just shuts down and breaks. And you're like, why did I spend x thousand number of hours trying to make myself look like I wasn't getting older? Because I fear death. That's ultimately what it comes down to in the long run. So I think we just solved all the problems.

Yeah, that's it. We're good.

Yeah, we're good. Bye, everybody. All right. But as we've established, there's value to muscle. I mean, for longevity, for function, for confidence, for all the things that you were naming Sal and that you talk about in your book. So I want to ask you a few questions and we don't have to spend an hour on each question because obviously I know you could talk for multiple podcasts about just about anything I ask you. But I want to start here. Let's say that I'm listening and I do want to put on muscle. And, you know, maybe I'm a high school football player, maybe I'm 40, I just started lifting weights. What's realistic? How fast can people actually gain muscle?

All right, now, it depends on, of course, who we're talking about and where they are in their stage of training. So first off, I want to say this just to preface, okay. There is a wide genetic variance when it comes to how well or how quickly you'll respond to strength training or resistance training. So think of it this way, right? Think of it like this. Besides watching NBA games or going to an NBA game, how many times in your life, in everyday life, have you seen people that are over 7ft tall? Right? Probably either never or maybe one time your whole life. And you remember it because it really stood out. That's how rare. The muscle building genetics that you see in the magazines and on social media with these extreme bodies. That's how rare that is. So you are probably not that.

You probably don't have old school fallen angel giant blood for any of you who are into. Into religious literature and familiar with the nephilim.

Yeah, yeah. So that's probably not you. Now, on the other end of the extreme are people that just simply don't seem to respond to exercise at all. They typically have health issues as a result of it, and there's lots of frailty going on, and you're probably nowhere near there. As well. And that's just as rare, if not more rare. Most people are somewhere in the middle. Men obviously have a higher propensity, and there's a. There's a faster reaction time in terms of how their body adapts to strength training than women. The younger you are within a certain, you know, age group, I would say between the ages maybe like 20 to 30 or so, you're gonna respond faster than if you're, you know, 40 to 50 or older. And then are you new to exercise versus is this something that you've been doing for a long time? If you're very new, the response is much faster. Refer to this as newbie gains than if this is something that you've been doing a long time. So let's talk about newbie gains versus maybe experience. Right, with newbie gains. For a man, the average man doing everything right, with average muscle building genetics, you could probably gain about 8 to 10 lean pounds of body mass in the first year. That's pretty realistic. Eight to ten pounds. Now, some people will be higher, 15 pounds. Some people might be a little lower, but that's probably a good average of lean. And I'm not talking about water weight, of course not body fat, that's lean body mass. For women, it's probably about half. You're looking at four, maybe six pounds of lean body mass within that first year. After that, it does start to slow down. Probably you're looking at maybe half the speed for the second year and so on. And then at some point, you start to kind of hit this limit of genetic capacity in terms of how much muscle you can build. Now here's the good news, by the way. The amount of work and volume and training that you need to put into building muscle is far more than the amount of work and effort and volume and training that you need to put in to maintain muscle. Studies actually show.

The journal of Strength Conditioning Research, like I think it was about eight months ago came out, they had a fantastic article in there. I bookmarked it and highlighted it and talked about it on a podcast. But it actually is kind of nice to know. It's like a decent weight training, sometimes to failure, for example, but even once a week, you can maintain pretty efficiently.

Yeah, that article, that study that was based on some studies talked about 1/9 of the volume. So imagine whatever you're doing now, 1/9 of that would be required essentially to maintain. Now, I do wanna be clear. More activity, there's more benefit than just building muscle. So it's not like you do 1/9 of the activity, keep the muscle and have all the other benefits of regular exercise. We're just talking about the muscle aspect of it. Now, why is this good news? Well, it's good news because building muscle is a more permanent, and I hate using this word, I gotta be very careful because there's nothing that's permanent. Your body's always adapting, but it's one of the more permanent ways to change your body in a favorable way. Now it's extremely favorable to build muscle. In the context of modern life with our sedentary lifestyle, the fact that we're surrounded by hyper palatable food, you want to have more muscle because it gives you a faster metabolism, which, you know, there's a lot of complexity in terms of how diet affects your health, but a large piece of that is are you eating more than you're burning or are you eating less than you burn? And believe it or not, you can get away with much more if you're eating as much as you're burning or less than. And so what helps with that is a faster metabolism, which muscle, you know, it does move that in that direction. Muscle also is, at least when you're training to build muscle, it's the only pro tissue exclusively, I should say, or at least more directly a pro positive tissue form of exercise than other forms of exercise. So what does that mean if you do exercise to build muscle, namely resistance training or strength training, what the main adaptation that you're asking your body to do is to build muscle. Now, other forms of exercise don't directly do this necessarily and in some cases might actually do the opposite. Like if you do lots and lots and lots and lots of endurance training, you're probably telling your body to pare muscle down to become more efficient at that type of exercise. Well, proper resistance training tells the body directly we need to build muscle. Now why is this, why is this, you know, something that is interesting or why should we even talk about this? Think of the hormones associated with building muscle, and think of the hormones associated with paring muscle down, right? If your body has a signal to build muscle and everything else is good, your diet's good and your stress is good, it's like a really positive signal. Build muscle and your body wants to do it, it will maneuver its hormones in a favorable way to do so. So in men, you can reliably see a raising of testosterone, you can reliably see an increasing of androgen receptor density, so the testosterone becomes more effective. You improve your insulin sensitivity. In fact, one of the most effective ways to improve insulin sensitivity is to simply build muscle. I mean there's studies on severely obese people where all they have them do is build muscle. They don't even lose any weight, they just gain a little bit of muscle. And we see improvements in their insulin sensitivity. This happens to both men and women. You see a balancing of estrogen and progesterone. You see this kind of youthful levels of growth hormone cortisol starts to become more healthy or appropriately utilized. I use the word appropriate in the sense of it's a more healthy way. So when you get your body to build muscle, your body kind of feels, organizes its hormones in more youthful ways. And this is extremely important when you consider the what's happening in modern societies. We've seen for example in men and this has been identified now for decades. There's testosterone levels have been dropping for decades and I'm sure there's lots of reasons why. And we don't necessarily need to go into that. I mean there's xenoestrogens and chemicals and lack of activity and strength training and whatever, lots of things.

Although we're way, way better now at doing things like making apps and computer solved, like. But you know, arguably we're, we're kind of adapting to operate in an automated, highly post industrial era in which lower levels of testosterone might have been replaced by perhaps increased creativity where I don't know, get, get, get in touch a little more with our yin side.

Yeah, you're. And you know what, now here's what's interesting about that. You know. Yes. If you have testosterone levels that are off the Richter scale, like if you're taking, you know, crazy super, super physiological doses. But if you look at drive, creativity, ingenuity and innovation in within healthy ranges, really low testosterone is terrible.

That's true. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, it's kind of, kind of a sweet spot, isn't it?

Yeah. So it makes things healthier in that sense. And we're noticing this drop in testosterone. Men, we're not. Hormone issues with women is now also well documented. I mean fertility treatment centers are through the roof and part of the reasons women are having children later. But there's a lot of other stuff going on with our bodies. Just telling your body to lift weights pushes things in that kind of positive direction when it comes to hormones.

Yeah.

Muscle is also super protective. So you want to build muscle. Now there's a difference between building healthy muscle and forcing your body through chemicals to build a bodybuilder physique. That's not what I'm talking about. So I'm talking about doing this within the confines of your body's natural abilities and done in a healthy way. And, you know, the original question was, how much muscle can I expect to build? You know, eight to ten pounds if you're a guy in the first year, about four to six in the first year for a female, and then it slows down after that. But that's okay.

Yeah.

Because you don't need to build tons of muscle, but boy, do those effect. And also, of course. Okay, now I'm gonna appeal to the. Let's use a little marketing here. I'm gonna use a little sales tactic. Eight to ten pounds of muscle in a man, boy, does that make you look different. And four to six pounds of muscle in a woman, you talk about sculpted and curve and tone and firmness. Like that's what does it.

Well, I mean, just think about this. Go out and shop at Costco for £10 of rib eye steak. Bring that home, set it on the counter, and then imagine all that steak being on your body. You know, some people are like eight to ten pounds. Eh, doesn't see. I heard about my friend who went from 170 to 220 over a year of lifting. Well, you know, gear and all that jazz aside, eight to ten pounds. If you have eight to ten pounds of steak on your island in your kitchen, I guarantee that's a pretty, pretty hefty little pile of steak right there.

Right. And. And there's a profound effect on your metabolism. Now, I know that there's people who are going to refer to studies and say, well, I read the study that one pound of muscle only burns extra amount more calories. It's way more complex than that. Now, that's definitely true. However, when you look at the metabolism, which, by the way, let's be very clear, probably the second most complex thing that we've ident. That we've found in the universe under the human brain, Right. Is mammalian metabolism. Here's an interesting thing. If you look at your. The amount of calories that your body burns on its own, not talking about you being active or anything like that, but just on its own with your current lean body mass. There's a range, it's not a set number. In other words, I could burn 1500 calories or 2200 calories. Those are arbitrary numbers that I'm just spitting out of my, you know, just spitting out of my mouth. But there's a range of calories your body can burn with the Same lean body mass now, gaining lean body mass moves it in the upper range, and losing it moves it in the lower range. But what we also have to understand is sending, just sending a pro muscle signal will get your body to burn more calories, even if you don't necessarily gain more muscle. And I've seen this with clients time and time again. Why is this important? Because today, in modern societies, it wasn't like this 10,000 years ago. By the way, a fast metabolism 10,000 years ago was a liability. Today it's an asset. If you can burn 4,000 calories a day on your own, you're less likely to be obese. You're less likely to suffer from chronic health issues that result from overconsumption. It's a positive thing. I mean, if I could double everybody's metabolism right now, we would all but solve the obesity epidemic. So you want this, you want a fast metabolism in the context of modern life, and building muscle does that. Nothing else really does it nearly as effectively.

Yeah, as long as you leave aside the hypercompensation variable. Of all the people who know they just doubled their metabolism, they're gonna order an extra pizza from Di Stefano's pizza shop down the street now. You know what's interesting about this is, as you've noted, and there's a huge genetic component, of course, and I think it was a few years ago, there was a physiology journal. It just went to all the, like, the low versus high skeletal muscle hypertrophic responders to resistance exercise training. And like, the genetics in terms of like myostatin expression and IGF1 alleles just was highly different. And of course, in people who were really, really good responders, maybe that person that, you know, dude who's not in the 8, 10 pound range, he's put on like 18 to 20 in a year, may actually have some of those superior genetics, you know, whatever you want to call them. Viking genetics, Nephilim genetics, you name it. But there's a lot of molecular and physiological variables like your satellite cell genes, the satellite cells that are kind of hovering around your muscle fibers that help them to repair and to grow. People who have a certain genetic variant have more satellite cells around their muscle fiber, so they can expand their pool of satellite cells during training. And then there are there are other people who have a certain, you know, higher disposition of fast twitch muscle fibers. The list goes on and on. Then there's muscle memory, which you brought up, sal, which basically means if you've been lifting for a certain period of time or there's even a couple of studies that came out a few years ago showing that steroid users, it's kind of like that, once a doper, always a doper type of argument, they actually are able to return back and build muscle more quickly than they would have been able to had they not been on some type of performance enhancing aid. And then there's lifestyle, right? There's some fascinating studies on a high stress lifestyle being something that impedes the ability to build muscle, and perhaps that's the catabolic effect of excess cortisol levels or, you know, poor sleep resulting in poor hypertrophy adaptations. Who knows? But ultimately, there's a lot of factors going on. But what you've just highlighted as kind of like that 8 to 10 pound ish for men, 4 to 6 pound ish for women for a year is, I think, pretty accurate and reasonable for most folks. And as is the case when I interview a fellow podcaster, I could just wind you up and let you go and walk away with just about any questions. And I'll probably just ask you a question and go make myself some coffee, man, and come back and see if we're still talking. But I have a question for you, just based on everything that you know and what you've looked into and what you researched writing this book. And I know you probably like me, just like learn a bunch from people who ask questions on your podcast that you got to find out the answers to. But anyways, let's say, Sal, that you did have to live on an island for a year or I was going to send you back to Italy and put you there for a year, I don't know, out in a villa in Florence and you had to maintain or build muscle. Here's my question for you. Nutrition aside, supplements aside, et cetera, what equipment would you bring? And you could bring like whatever squat rack, ARX machine, freaking biohacked electrical muscle stimulation suit, you name it. But what equipment would you bring and what workout program? If you could choose any flavor of workout program, you know, whether it's like, you know, a high rep, low weight, high weight, low rep, et cetera, what would you do? And let's, let's leave aside the idea that maybe you'd change things up throughout the year or maybe, you know, use different forms of equipment. But what, what kind of equipment would you use as like your primary operating mode? And what flavor of workouts, painting with a somewhat broad brush, would you choose?

Yeah. No, good question. So it's what I've been using for the Last, I don't know, 20 years. I haven't really worked out in gyms consistently for 20 years. All I've ever used is for a long time now is a squat rack, barbell, dumbbells, an adjustable bench and that's it. I do everything I need free weights and I do of course on the squat rack is a pull up bar and a dip apparatus and I can pretty much do anything I want with that. Now, now in terms of the workout, but I personally prefer full body type workouts. I like compound lifts. Strength is fun for me. There's a quality of life component there in terms of enjoyment. I like being really strong. So I tend to, you know, love to do the compound lifts. Now those also incidentally just have a huge bang for their buck. So I'll probably do a full body workout. And how many days a week would.

You go full body?

Three, maybe three days a week. And then what I'll do is throw in a couple days a week of maybe you know, mobility or conditioning type work well, do heavy carries or you know, with, with weights overhead or at my sides like suitcase carries. I might do long hikes and walks just because I love doing that. I'm not a huge endurance performance person from you know, in terms of just quality of life component. Now back in the day I did jiu jitsu for a while and I really love that and I got a lot out of that from there. But yeah, if I would just need my free weights and that's it. Full body workouts.

Full body, three times a week. Ish.

That's it.

Okay. Yeah, I, I would probably, I, I think I would probably go with like just because my history tends to be like, I really like metabolic stem type of workouts. Like I, I really enjoy moving during the whole workout and I enjoy, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of like a lactic, lactic acid fiend. Like that whole concept that popped up a couple years ago of high intensity, I think it was called high intensity repeat training versus high intensity interval training where you work out kind of palvozatuline quicken the dead style workouts where it's like 10 seconds and then luxurious rest intervals of 2 minutes and then 10 seconds. I, despite appreciating the value and the science behind those workouts, hate them. I love the burn, I love the metabolic stem. It's what drew me to triathlons and obstacle course racing, all that. I would go and obviously this probably would be a little bit unfavorable for Pure muscle building than free weights three times a week. But I. I would still go full body. I'd be doing full body probably three to five times a week. And I would have, like three to four heavy kettlebells. That would be. What I'd go with, is kettlebells for the metabolic stimulus and a little bit of the asymmetry. And then I'd probably go three to five times a week. That's what I'm going to match you with.

Yeah. You know what you're highlighting here too, Ben, which is really important. You know, back in the day, as an early trainer, if a client came to me and said, what's the best form of, I don't know, cardio? Right. I would list off the ones that the studies show burn the most calories and all that stuff. Later on, what I learned was that was the wrong way to answer when they would. Later on when people would ask me that question, I would reply and say, well, what's your favorite form of cardio? Because that's the one that you're gonna probably do most consistently. And one thing that you're highlighting is we both like different kind of forms of exercise because there's not just the value in the physical effects of your workout routine, but there's a value in the enjoyment of doing it. There's a. And that's understated. I don't think anybody ever talks about how much. How much value there's in just enjoying what you're doing while you're doing it. And that's really important. So I'm glad you. You kind of showed the. You and I both like to exercise, and we're both very consistent, but we both like to approach it differently because of that aspect right there. Yeah.

Very, very quick, shameless plug opportunity here, Sal. You guys have a bunch of fitness guides that you put on your website called Maps. Which of the Maps programs would be the closest to what you've just described? Just like free weights, three times a week, full body. Ish.

Maps. Anabolic. Yeah, that's the original program. And then what you do. So I think the closest would be our Maps OCR program or Maps Performance.

Probably Maps Performance because I don't run anymore. I run down to my driveway to check the mail and I run if my kids are chasing me in a game of zombie at the park. That's about it. So, yeah, I probably would be metabolic. Okay. So. And by the way, for those of you listening, I'll link to Sal's book and his fitness programs. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Sal. Sal, I want to tackle some trends in the fitness industry. Okay. We can kind of go not quite lightning round, but kind of sort of lightning round ish, if that makes sense. I think you get what I'm saying? Okay. All right, so let's start here because I already named it, so we might as well start here. Electrical muscle stimulation as a muscle gain or muscle maintenance strategy. These, like, suits electrodes. What do you think? You ever used them? You have an opinion on them?

Yeah, I do. As a way to help reduce atrophy when you're injured. There's well documented that it has some benefit as a way to build muscle. Not a ton of benefit. It can help people maybe connect to muscles that they have a poor neurological connection to or a poor feel for. So, like, you're doing squats and, oh, I can't really feel this on my butt. Then stim may help you feel it in your butt while you're squatting. So you could get better, you know, change your technique and form. But as a muscle building tool, you know, I mean, if there's so many things that are gonna give you way more benefit to focus on. But again, as for, in terms of preserving, if you're injured and you can't move, it's well documented that it'll reduce the amount of atrophy that you'll experience.

Okay? So you bastard, because I'm gonna come back at you. And there was a time on my podcast, Sal, where, where, like, I was super polite to all of my guests and was like, I don't want to disagree with someone on a podcast because then this is gonna turn it into a shit show and we're gonna start arguing, but we're gonna do it anyway.

Let's do it.

So I. So I. I would have agreed with you up until, like, probably. Well, no, I would have agreed with you. Remember. Remember paleo effects?

Yes.

Okay, so remember how they had that electrical muscle stimulation machine there called the newbie that they would, like, put on, and it was like teeth gritting, like balls to the wall. Electrical muscle stimulation. I don't know if you tried it at all.

Yes, no, I. I did. I did. I have tried something similar.

Just like, we're talking, like, full on, like, near rhabdo in terms of. Of the actual, you know, feeling that you have for doms that last for, like a week afterwards. Although I agree with you on, like, you know, a lot of these, you know, like the mark pro and the compact, some of these things are great for blood flow, great for recovery, great for maybe maintaining some muscle or at least some blood flow around an injured joint. You know, I've been using something like that, my quads lately because I just got like a, a little bit of a knee surgery from actually Dr. Matt Cook down by you in San Jose. A little knee surgery on me now. So I've been doing that to kind of keep my quads triggered, et cetera. But either a, that newbie device that I did down at Paleofx or this latest thing I've been using is like a full body electrical muscle stimulation suit. It's called a, called a catalyst. If you actually push yourself on those. I have personally, and I realize this is fully anecdotal, but have several friends who are also using those, like high, high end devices and experiencing some pretty significant increases in muscle growth in doms, which, let's face it, not the best metric of muscle growth, but there's definitely some significant doms that's going on. And I think it depends on the intensity, how much of a pain threshold that you're willing to go under while using these things and whether or not you're using them properly. Which means typically you're moving through a full range of motion as it's stimming you. Like you got it attached to shoulders and chest and you're doing push ups, or you have it on quads and hammies and you're doing squats. I think that it is possible to actually get pretty significant results with ems depending on how it's used.

Yeah. So. Okay, let me clarify. I think when we're talking about someone like you, who you're always training at a high level, especially compared to the average person or even the average fitness fanatic, and to get your body to improve anymore, you've done all the basics, you've done all the stuff that's really effective, the big bang for your buck type of stuff. So, yeah, probably some value in any technique or device that's gonna increase your threshold for stimulus or intensity. For the average person, I don't think, I think it's a waste of money and time. I really do. I think for the average person, they're better off practicing squatting or practicing movements and getting good at that. Now if I, if somebody gave me Ben Greenfield as a client and said, okay, here's a guy and I knew everything about you. Oh, he's competed in triathlons. This guy was an ocr, you know, pro OCR racer, very fit, he knows a lot of shit. What can we do to get another 1 or 2% performance out of him? Well, now I'm gonna look at, you know, red light therapy. I'm gonna look at stim, I'm gonna look at hot, cold, contra. I'll look at every possible thing that's gonna squeeze out a little bit out of your body more than what you're already doing. So there's a difference there. But the average person, it's like, and here's the challenge again. Remember, I'm always communicating to the average person. That's just what I'm, that's my, what I trained to do. Average person comes to me and says, hey, you know, I want to start working out. What do you think about this stim machine to add to my routine? Let's not do that. Let's focus on being consistent a couple days a week. Here's your exercises. Do this. This is what's going to give you what you're looking for.

That makes sense. Comma, like, let's face it, getting a squat rack from Rogue and doing squats and deadlifts and cleans, et cetera. From an athleticism and functional standpoint. Yeah, I mean, you're, you're, you're under a load just for bone density and movement, et cetera. That will kick the pants off of any EMS device. But yeah, I think with ems, it just kind of depends on the device and how hard you're using it. And yeah, I think your training status also, also fits into the equation too, Sal. So what about BFR training, like blood flow restriction training? You ever mess around with that?

Yeah, totally. That's fascinating. Right? Very, very interesting. The studies on that are actually pretty phenomenal. So blood flow restrictive training simulates heavy load training in the muscle and can cause hypertrophy. So essentially, for people that know what that is, you tie off a limb with like a, like a knee wrap. Now, you don't want to do it so much that you go numb, but you want to do it enough to where you restrict blood outflow. Right. Venous outflow. So muscle will go to the muscle. Excuse me, Blood will go to the muscle, but less of it will come out. Then you do your exercise and what happens is you get this waste buildup, you get this really intense pump, and it's very intense with a very low weight, and it simulates heavier weight training. Now, why is this beneficial if you have a knee injury and you can't squat your normal £300 and you're worried about atrophy, but you can still do full Range of motion exercises. Well, now you can do BFR training. Put £100 on the bar, which is safe for your knee joint, but now simulates heavier weight for your legs and you get similar benefits. Now is it, is it gonna give you the same benefits? No. But is it better than what we did before? Yes. Now here's where it gets fun. Can you combine this with regular training to augment what you're doing? And my experience is yes, but you can definitely overdo it. Okay, but if you're doing everything right and there's certain body parts that you wanna kinda. Okay, my calves are really stubborn or my biceps are really stubborn, you could throw in a little BFR during the week, so long as you don't overdo it. And you will get this kind of cell swelling signaling effect where you'll get extra, you know, hypertrophy on the muscle. But it' sit. I've tried replacing regular training with it and it's definitely not as effective. It's better as a additive, as something you add to your training.

Yeah, constantly EMS too, especially if you're hobbled up or if you can't handle heavy weights or you know, for me personally, if I'm traveling these days, you know, I'll throw one of those little tiny roll on hard shell suitcases on the plane with me and always in that, I either have that, the, the BFR bands with an extra suspension strap I can put onto a wall for, for pull ups and things like that and then a resistance band. And in a hotel room I just put on the BFR bands and jam and it's quick, it's simple and then I'll just walk the rest of the day. So I do either that or that, that full body electrical muscle stimulation suit. Now. So for portability, it works obviously a little better than shoving a barbell into your bag. Totally. Yeah. It is one of those things that is adjunctive to an existing strength training protocol. Ideally. But yeah, BFR training is something I work in, I found some value in. And especially for people like seniors who want to maintain or build muscle, it seems to be super effective. That's another one I find intriguing.

Yeah, it is.

Now how about this whole concept because I briefly mentioned like, you know, muscle training to failure and there's even a lot of programs out there. Probably Dr. Doug McGuff and his book Body by Science is what really made this popular. But the idea of super slow training, like single set to failure training where you're only working out like 15 to 20 minutes, you're going like 30 seconds up, 30 seconds down, five different full body exercises to absolute failure. Boom. Done. Like, like how do you feel about that style of training?

Yeah, so super slow mo training actually originated during the, I believe it was during World War II when they were rationing iron and steel and so gyms didn't have heavy weight. So bodybuilder said, well, what if I, what if I do a 30 second set? You know, how is this gonna feel? And actually, you know, notice some, some pretty good results. Here's the, the downside. If your super slow motion reps are going too long, then it starts to become more endurance and stamina than strength and you lose some of the muscle building effects. So there's a, definitely a limit to how slow you can go and how long the set can take. Now here's the thing really the, I guess the cornerstone of probably what we should focus on here, which is intensity. Intensity is a very important variable or component to training. And it's important because it's essential to getting the body to respond and adapt. But it's not the only variable. And if we abuse it, we miss out on so much more. For example, a, you know, one set toto failure of an exercise may produce the localized muscle damage that is, you know, good to stimulate, you know, muscle growth and all that stuff. But what you miss out on are the multiple sets of practice that are great for the central nervous system, that are great for the skill of the exercise. Like, we tend to forget that when you exercise you are performing skills. These are skills. It's not unlike playing a sport like squatting, deadlifting, pressing, rowing. It's not just my lats and my chest and my shoulders and my legs and my biceps. It's also the skill of the movement. And if you get better at the skill of the movement, you actually reap more of the benefits. Think of it this way. If we think of like a barbell squat, for example, very basic exercise, but does require a lot of skill. If you think about it, we could go on a scale of 0 to 100 in terms of benefit. 100 being the max benefit we can get from the barbell squat, and zero being I'm not getting any benefit from the barbell squat. How do I get to a hundred? A lot of it has to do with my skill and technique and how I feel and how my muscles are firing and all that. So here's another good example. The most studied strength sport of all time. The one strength sport where probably cumulatively billions of dollars has been spent on Perfecting how effective training is and what. How it, you know, it affects the body and how you get strong is Olympic lifting. Olympic lifting. At one point, remember, if we go back to the Cold War, you know, you had the Soviet Union, which was just really a combination of many, many different, you know, countries, and you had the United States. And one of the ways that we would, you know, kind of, you know, swing our dicks was, you know, at the Olympics, who's gonna have the best athletes? Well, the Soviets being, you know, communists, they invested a lot of national money into studying the most effective ways to get people strong and to perform better.

Specifically with the snatch and the clean and jerk. For people not familiar with Olympic weightlifting, yes.

And they spent a lot of time and money and a lot of science. In fact, when the Iron Curtain came down, it was a lot of stuff we learned from them, because over here, a lot of athletes kind of train themselves and coaches train themselves nonetheless. One thing that they did that was really effective was lifters didn't go to failure. They trained at a moderate intensity. They just did it off. They practiced a lot. You had Olympic lifters practicing the snatch, for example, throughout the day. It wasn't like they did the snatch to failure. They perfected the snatch. They perfected how their cns fires.

Almost like a Pavel Zatselin, not to mention his name, too much like his greasing the groove type of approach completely.

There's tremendous benefit to that. And we miss out on that when we only manipulate intensity and we think to ourselves, well, if I just train super intense, then I don't have to train as long and I'll still get this, you know, whatever benefit, it's not true. There's lots of benefit to multiple sets at lower intensities, to practicing the movement. Not saying there isn't any benefit to high intensity. There's benefit to all of it. You want to manipulate all these variables to give you kind of some, like, somewhat of a balanced type of routine. Now you. If you do look at studies on failure and they compare it head to head, they do find that failure tends to be too much intensity for most people, where the body starts to just prioritize healing over adaptation, and you don't get as much adaptation going on. And people tend to confuse the two. Right. They think that their body recovering is the same thing as adapting. It's not. Even though they tend to happen simultaneously or cross over quite a bit. Healing is just healing. It's like, I cut my hand, my skin needs to heal. Adaptation is the callus that builds over that scar to prevent it from getting injured in the fr. You know, the second time around. So in terms of adaptation, there's definitely value in intensity, but if that's, that's, if that's your main focus, you're gonna miss out on so muchso much other stuff. Got it?

Got it. Okay, so, so here'. Here's one more for ya. Hyperthermia. You know, a lot of people are, are championing the benefits of, like, saunas now for hypertrophy, you know, the activation of heat shock proteins, et cetera. Do you, do you really think that's gonna move the dial much on something like muscle for gain or muscle maintenance or have you messed around with, like, long sauna sessions in your own routine or with the people you guys are working with?

So this is remarkable because the science on now hype, this type of, I don't know what you want to call it, training or, you know, usage of saunas and heat has been around for thousands of years in different cultures and anytime. And I know, I know you do the same thing, Ben, Anytime you see a common practice among different cultures that has been around for a long time, you know, there's some value there, you know, that there's some reason why, you know, the Chinese did this and the people in, you know, northern European countries did this. And why is this something that all these cultures have done or practiced in some way, shape or form for thousands of years? There's lots of benefits. Studies now show this, that consistent sauna use, for example, really reduces illness, improves longevity, reduces cancer risk and heart disease risk. And, and, you know, our body's ability to acclimate to temperature is, think of it like a muscle, and we just don't train it anymore. So it's atrophied because everything's so temperature controlled. So when you train it, you. And you'll notice this, by the way, when you use a sauna, your tolerance for heat improves. Or if you've ever met a friend that's from, like, a really cold place, you'll notice that they have a better tolerance to cold than heat and so forth. So this is something that your body adapts to and trains. Now in terms of building muscle. Will it help you build muscle? It's not in any profound way. It's not like you're gonna, it's not like taking creatine where you notice, oh, my strength boosts. But over time, because of its health benefits and because it does, to a low extent, simulate a little bit of stress that you would get from exercise, you're probably gonna do better in the long term from a muscle building perspective. And if we count the health, health effects of it, the po, which we know for a fact there's positive health effects and how net, you know, poor health or getting sick for example, can reduce your ability to build muscle or improve your performance. If you throw that in there, then I'd say yeah, it's definitely something that's important, but it's nothing profound. It's not that you're gonna do it. And then you'll notice you can have.

Guns and be detoxed, bro. Uhm, yeah. And I mean like, you know a lot of this stuff, you know, and, and this is something that might be sounding like a little bit of a broken record to you all listening at by the podcast, but looking at like electrical muscle stimulation or BFR training or hyperthermic conditioning or super slow training on some nautilus machines or like a vibration platform or whatever, like people really like novelty and they also dig stuff that allows them to feel as though they're somehow able to get the same results with less effort or in a shorter period of time, which is understandable. And I think that many of these so called biohacking modalities for fitness can fit into the category of, you know, probably allowing you to get perhaps better results than you might be able to get just doing bodyweight push ups and, and body weight spot squats when compared to doing nothing at all. But then when you look at, at the actual process of gritting your teeth and lifting heavy and learning the coordinative skills required to do things like a snatch and a clean and jerk or a push press or a barbell squat or a, or a hex bar deadlift or whatever like time and time again. What you'll find is that the people who solely rely on like the sauna and their BFR bands and standing on a vibration platform, they, they, they usually, you can almost tell, you look at the body and it's just less, less thick, less dense. I know this is a difficult expression for many people to swallow, but they don't look as hard to kill. You know what I'm saying?

No, you're, you're right. I mean you got to do this with nutrition, you got to do this with exercise. There's, there's, there are big rocks and there's smaller here. Think of it this way. Let's use the analogy of a car, right? You want to make your car faster. What are the priorities? Right? Engine is probably at the Top right. Not the spoiler. The spoiler is probably way down the list. So you wanna list these things out. You wanna build muscle. Well, okay. Wanna eat adequate calories, protein, you know, lifting weights. Those are at the top. Where does the vibration plate fit? Where does bfr, you know, fit? Where does sauna or hyperthermic training? I wouldi would argue that among all of the extra stuff that you could do, hyperthermic training is probably near the top. Right? If besides the train lifting and all that stuff just. Cause the studies show the profound health effects that are coming from. It's probably higher than all of the other. I don't know what you want to label them biohack type things you could do, but it's definitely not as important as just being active and eating right and getting good sleep. Those are more.

Yeah, don't get me wrong. I don't want to piss on the parade of cool fitness trends and biohacks and some of these fun things that do introduce novelty and they're fun, right? It's like maybe playing tennis with balloons and 80s disco music on, you know? You know, instead of using tennis balls and, you know, maybe you got pom poms attached to your hat and you're wearing sweatbands. It's like, yeah, that's fun and it's cool, it's interesting. And you know, I see a place for humans to enjoy just about everything on this good planet. But, you know, if your goal is simply I want to get strong and build muscle, you got to go to the pain cave. You wouldn't believe, Sal, because you guys have been up here, you've flown up here, and we've done podcasts before up here on my property. The number of, let's call them fitness biohackers who have puked in my garage in about two minutes flat after experiencing what a. And I know this sounds totally narcissistic, but after experiencing what a real workout feels like, because they've been lifting a 4 kilogram kettlebell in their sauna for the past couple of months. So, yeah, I mean, I dig the concept of. And this is kind of like what I kind of identify with in fitness is like, like, do the hard shit and then use all that fun stuff as really cool, fun, novel ways to put the icing on the cake.

Yes. You know, here's another analogy. You'll love Ben, right? It's like the dad that does the two vacations a year with his family. And it's like, I'm a great dad. I take my family on Vacation twice a year. But he doesn't do. Spend time with them in the morning before school, he doesn't pick them up after school. He doesn't spend time with them before dinner, you know, or after dinner. Like he doesn't do all that dated that daily stuff. That's a little bit more challenging, that requires a little more discipline. That's way more important than the, you know, the vacations that you do that, you know, twice a year. That's, that's what these things are like. It's like, you know, gotta do the main stuff, the important stuff. If you really, if you really wanna get some return for your time, spend your time there. Once you get that all down, then you can throw the other stuff in there.

Right? Then you can put your transdirect cranial stimulation hat on before you go.

There's another one right there.

All right, so I, I know we're getting a bit long in the tooth, but, but here's, here's a fun one that might seem like a negative question. I'm not asking this question to be negative, but I think it's, it's just kind of a, maybe a fun little one to throw in there. Sal, what's either the dumbest fitness trend that's out there right now or the dumbest thing? If you want to get more self deprecatory that you've done in your own fitness routine, like what's something that you're just like, this is really ridonkulous.

Yeah. Okay, so I'll start with the fitness trend that annoys the shit out of me. And this is a little bit more, I guess it's probably more relevant to the stage competition, you know, stage presentation world. But I can't believe this is still around. And they're, they're called squeams. They look like corsets and they're called squeams. S Q U E E M as in I need to hear and, and. Oh. And they're essentially like a corset. And what people do is they wear them around their waist and they're very, very tight. And in the pursuit of getting a smaller waist. And it does shrink your waist because it atrophies the muscles of your cortis to give you that. Yeah. To give you that smaller looking waist on stage. It's probably the dumbest, most dangerous thing that these people do. It's also so anti fitness. I can't even believe people do this. I know a young lady, for example, that actually caused a blockage in her intestines as a result. Yeah, I know that. Never heard of.

Huh. Well, this podcast is not ever going to be sponsored by Squeam, I guess.

No, it's, it's, it's silly and it's ridiculous and they promote. You got some fitness influence. I shouldn't say fitness. You have influencers like Kim Kardashian and promoting shit like this to shrink your waist and it's really dangerous, really dumb. And it does not belong any, I mean, atrophying muscles on purpose. Why, why would you ever do that? Especially your core.

Oh my God, why would you do it? For the curves, baby. What's a dumb question that is. Alright, so, so the dumbest fitness trend right now is a squeam. What about the what, what about the dumbest thing you've ever done?

Oh man, the dumbest stuff that I ever do in fitness is related to supplements. I have a bit of a dysfunctional relationship.

Diarrhea story.

I, well, I love taking them, I love experimenting. It's a good time. And this goes back when I was younger and I was reading chemistry books and I thought, oh, this is cool, let's combine this. So this is back in the day when you could buy ephedra easily over the counter, you know. So I bought myself some ephedra, some caffeine, bought some aspirin. Yeah. And so I got the old ECA stack, right? Ephedra, caffeine, aspirin, aspirin, increasing the, the half life in your body. Ephedra being the, you know, it's stimulating those receptors, beta receptors, caffeine, It's a stimulated self. And then I read about yohimbe. This is before it was actually popular. The way yohimbe works is it's kind of like, here's the analogy, right? Ephedra, caffeine and aspirin raises the temperature of the thermostat, yohimbe raises the potential of the thermostat to go up even higher. Kind of takes the ceiling off. So I bought all these supplements, I went to the local supplement store and the great person that owned the store behind the desk thought nothing of selling a 16 year old a bottle of ephedra, caffeine and yohimbe. Very good. And I took them all. And I took them all at efficacious doses for themselves, not when they were combined because I didn't realize what would happen. I took them, I went to the gym and I worked out for like three hours. And then I came home, I laid on my bed, felt my heart beating like it was going to come out of my chest. And I remember thinking to myself, what a terrible way for my mom to find me tomorrow morning when I'm dead. Like, I'm.

This is.

This is not cool. Anyway, I've done a lot of that, Ben. I've done a lot of experimenting with supplements and combining things, and it'. St. That' sthat's like 99% of the bad shit that I've done in fitness is related to that.

It's combined. But whoa, baby. I mean, the.

Not at all.

What is the sarcoplasmic swelling that makes you look enormously buff for at least 12 hours after you've done your 300 pushups to get you ready for a date. So you got all that swelling.

It's like that on steroids. Take a PDE5 inhibitor and do some BFR on your arms. There you go.

There's a way to go. I actually have done. I've done. And this was actually based on an interview I did with somebody who was talking about PDE5 inhibitors and blood flow enhancement. I actually did Papa Viagra prior to a blood flow restriction training workout once. There's actually a pretty good workout. There's a reason that stuff's a performance enhancing aid.

Oh, yeah. Not to go off on a side here, But I predict PDE5 inhibitors to be in the next 10 years prescribed more and more as a preventative, as a health supplement to prevent strokes and heart attacks because of the effects it has on the blood vessels. The science around those things is pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah. Off label use, there's a bunch of, like, natural PDE5 inhibitors. And I don't know, we might have to save that whole discussion for another day, but. Yeah, like medicinal plants as phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitors. There's a few of them out there. I think corny goat weed is one that's championed quite a bit. The. What do you call it? The epimedium.

Yeah, that's a good one. Pycnogenol. Try Pycnogenol. That's another one that'll give you a headache.

And I actually believe that ibogaine that a lot of people use in plant medicine, like Ibogay or Iboga, like microdosing with Ibova. Ibogaine or Iboga or South African bush extract. That's supposed to be something that acts on PDE5 as well. So you can have your plant medicine journey and kick your ass in the gym simultaneously. Well, Sal, we're running up against time, but first of all, for all of you who have made it through this episode thus far, all the Italians who I've managed to insult, and all the people who own electrical muscle stimulation companies who are no longer gonna sponsor Sal's podcast. You know, besides those few listeners we've lost along the way, if you're still listening in, I'll put a link to Sal's book, to Sal's workout programs that he writes, and even to all the podcast episodes if you enjoyed this one that Sal and me and his friends Justin and Adam have done with Mind Pump. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Sal if you can't spell Sal, I'm sorry. BenGreenfieldFitness.com SAL S A L and and Sal, I want to thank you for coming on the show today. It's been a while since we've been able to connect, and it's good to hear your voice, Ben.

I appreciate it, man. We always appreciate you. Like I said, you're a good person. One of our favorite people in the space, so thanks for having me.

Awesome. Well, folks, until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield, along with the great Italian immigrant Sal D. Stefano, signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week. Sam.