It's the master of muscle himself, Dr. Ben Bocchicchio.
He brings 5 decades of wisdom to this episode's discussion on high-intensity, low-volume training. Dr. Ben defies conventional wisdom in the fitness world with his approach. He explains why "less is more." And it's not just about building muscle - it's a fusion of dietary strategies and a workout regime his proven in his own life and thousands of his trainees for more than 5 decades.
Dude knows his stuff.
This episode explores the secrets behind muscle adaptation, fat metabolism, and the misunderstood roles of adrenaline and cortisol in your workout. Learn why those last few reps are the key to unlocking your body's true potential, and how high-intensity training can help you burn fat even when you're not in the gym.
Dr. Ben teaches us how to combat age-related muscle loss through strategic strength training and dietary choices. He shares how a low-carb, high-protein diet isn't just for bodybuilders but is crucial for anyone looking to maintain robust health regardless of age.
If you're intrigued by the power of protein, the importance of collagen and creatine, or simply looking for ways to surpass your strength thresholds, this is the fitness revelation you can't afford to miss.
--------------------------
Connect with Dr. Ben
Webpage: https://www.drbenbo.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drbenbo
Book: 15 Minutes to Fitness: https://amzn.to/48gwITQ
Email: drbenbo.com@hotmail.com
Keto-Mojo: https://keto-mojo.com/speakers/ben-bocchicchio/
Chances are, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't need to change your life and get healthier.
So take action right now. Book a call with Dr. Ovadia's team.
One small step in the right direction is all it takes to get started.
How to connect with Stay Off My Operating Table:
Twitter:
Learn more:
Theme Song : Rage Against
Written & Performed by Logan Gritton & Colin Gailey
(c) 2016 Mercury Retro Recordings
It's the master of muscle himself, Dr. Ben Bocchicchio.
He brings 5 decades of wisdom to this episode's discussion on high-intensity, low-volume training. Dr. Ben defies conventional wisdom in the fitness world with his approach. He explains why "less is more." And it's not just about building muscle - it's a fusion of dietary strategies and a workout regime his proven in his own life and thousands of his trainees for more than 5 decades.
Dude knows his stuff.
This episode explores the secrets behind muscle adaptation, fat metabolism, and the misunderstood roles of adrenaline and cortisol in your workout. Learn why those last few reps are the key to unlocking your body's true potential, and how high-intensity training can help you burn fat even when you're not in the gym.
Dr. Ben teaches us how to combat age-related muscle loss through strategic strength training and dietary choices. He shares how a low-carb, high-protein diet isn't just for bodybuilders but is crucial for anyone looking to maintain robust health regardless of age.
If you're intrigued by the power of protein, the importance of collagen and creatine, or simply looking for ways to surpass your strength thresholds, this is the fitness revelation you can't afford to miss.
--------------------------
Connect with Dr. Ben
Webpage: https://www.drbenbo.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drbenbo
Book: 15 Minutes to Fitness: https://amzn.to/48gwITQ
Email: drbenbo.com@hotmail.com
Keto-Mojo: https://keto-mojo.com/speakers/ben-bocchicchio/
Chances are, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't need to change your life and get healthier.
So take action right now. Book a call with Dr. Ovadia's team.
One small step in the right direction is all it takes to get started.
How to connect with Stay Off My Operating Table:
Twitter:
Learn more:
Theme Song : Rage Against
Written & Performed by Logan Gritton & Colin Gailey
(c) 2016 Mercury Retro Recordings
Welcome folks. It's the stay off my operating table podcast. We kind of have a little bit of a theme going here over the last several episodes and that's folks who've been doing the right thing not just for years but for decades. Today, phil, we've got I mean, we talked about Eric Berg being an OG in this space, but I think this guy may kind of owe OG Eric Berg if I can verb that noun yeah no introduce our guest.
Speaker 2:No doubt Dr Ben Bachitio was OG before there were OGs and we're going to talk about one of the pillars of health that we always discuss, which is activity and exercise. And, like I said, dr Ben's been doing it for longer than just about anyone and still doing it quite well. I'll say. I've had the pleasure of being in person with him at a number of conferences and he talks the talk and walks the walk. So really excited to have him on. Ben, why don't you just maybe give a little bit of your background to get us started how you got into, kind of the fitness and health and wellness industry and then we'll dig in?
Speaker 3:All right. Well, I was an athlete pretty, you know hopefully not the older I get, the better I was but a pretty elite athlete and very interested in the training. I had uncles and cousins that were into training boxers and athletes and I got to see it as a kid and I really enjoyed it and I loved the training myself. I'd like the training, sometimes as much as some of the sports, but anyway, so I wanted to study it. I went to school under grad to get a degree in phys, ed, health and science. Then I got a master's degree in kinesiology and PhD in exercise and a second PhD in health, and I've been doing this professionally since 1973. And I've always been a higher protein, low carb guy. So that's you know, 50s, some odd years, and basically I got interested in this.
Speaker 3:I was New York Times said I was a guru when I was 27. So that's in almost 50 years ago. So if I was a guru then I don't know what the hell I am now. But in any case, yeah, I've been around and I've kind of evolved into a metabolic health person in the last maybe 15, 20 years, because I think that's where my bent and my practice went and so I'm pretty well read in this stuff. Everybody knows me as the exercise guy and all that, and I've done hundreds of that, have sold hundreds of thousands of tapes and books and all that. But I'm very interested in metabolic health and also in including you know my strength, which is exercise and explaining time and time and time again for decades that this is a very important, not to be dismissed aspect of metabolic health and certainly longevity and long term health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's important to point out, like you said, that you know you've been integrating, you know, the exercise and the dietary strategies for a very long time now and back when you know some of the original I guess, well, some of the modern original low carb guys, like you know, dr Atkins and Dr Westman you know you were talking about it back then and integrating exercise. So you've let's start by maybe talking a little bit at a high level. You, you know, promote a different approach to building muscle than I think you know we traditionally see and talk a little bit about your approach, which is based on kind of slow, low rep versus the, you know, kind of usual bodybuilding approach high, you know, high rep counts and large number of sets and kind of spending all your time in the gym.
Speaker 3:Okay, I mean there are certain variables in the production of exercise response and their frequency, how often, intensity, how hard, duration, how long and I think, even style. So conventionally, to build muscle, high intensity was accepted, meaning hard exercises, and it was translated, you know, practically into heavy weights, explosive movements, a lot of work. And I pretty much studied this thing for many years and realized that some of those variables were over abused actually, and weren't even necessary. So I'm a minimalist and I wanted to see what is the least amount of intrusion on my lifestyle that I can make to get the biggest bang for my buck, for the objectives that I have, which is to get stronger and to reap the benefits of that process of protein synthesis, acquisition in the muscles, because that's really what we're trying to do. All right, so if conventionally we were doing three sets of 10 repetitions and we were told that the last three reps of the third set were the most important, as a wise guy you know a Italian kid from New York I would say at these conferences well, if the first, if we have the last three count of the 30, what's the purpose of the first 27 didn't make any sense to me. I said so let me see this what if I do the last three reps first, when I'm strong and actually capable of making inroads and changing the milieu of the muscle metabolism to the point where I reach a threshold level? Meaning I will adapt that that that would lead upwardly and see if that works. So I did it and it worked. I got just as much, if not better, results from reducing the mechanical work, the number of sets and reps, by 90%. So I said you know well then we know that volume isn't really an issue.
Speaker 3:Secondarily, if I do tax these muscles and the support systems because, don't forget, the muscle generates the support of all the other physiological systems it is the driver who wouldn't need a heart that could pump blood as as powerfully as it can under demand, or respiratory system that can increase its oxygen uptake by 10 or 15 times resting, or brain or skeletal system to meet those demands If it wasn't for the muscle actually making those demands. So these to me are support system. So one of the gals now, and I can't use the term muscle centric and I think it's a pretty good term I don't agree with everything she says about it but meaning I think the muscles are really vital in any metabolic consequence and any system that supports healthy metabolism. And I think I'm I've gotten decent at the using that muscle system in an efficient, safe, productive, long term manner. So I just reduced the, the, the amount of work, the volume enormously and I also reduced the force, because conventionally high intensity exercises demanded a lot of resistance, a lot of explosive movements, because that's the only way you could lift a heavy weight.
Speaker 3:And I said maybe that's not good because that's putting the load on the attaching system and taking load literally off the muscle. I want to do just the opposite load the muscle and take the load off the attaching system, because that's the, that's the long term hurdle that we have to overcome, that attaching system.
Speaker 1:Help me out the attaching system.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm sorry. Ligaments, tendons, joints, those are the things we have to preserve the muscles. Muscle damage, really, or injury, is a very freakish thing. It's usually the attaching system that becomes damaged, irritated, overused, and then we have repercussions and we have the inability to actually do exercise capacity and the slow movement that I did. Okay, I tried to reduce the forces and we know that forces mass, time, acceleration, and if you have acceleration you have that speed. So if you reduce the speed and in effect you're reducing the force enormously so you can work the muscles as metabolically hard and intensely as you possibly can and reduce the possible consequence of mechanical injury.
Speaker 1:As someone who screwed up one time doing drop sets on my overhead, I appreciate that. My question is how the heck do you maybe unpack a little bit what's actually happening that you're able to get the benefits of the last three reps without doing the previous 27? Okay, I heard trainers say you know, yeah, it's the last three, all the time. Yeah, that was the idea was to tax the muscle to the point that work to failure. So obviously you've got a different approach.
Speaker 3:Well, okay, let's, let's let's try to produce a simple analogy. So, having you run 10 miles, at the end of the 10 miles I say I want you to run until you drop, sprint until you drop. Now would you expect that you would sprint as long and as fast, as if I said to you okay, we're a little warmed up, even that's over done, and now I want you to run as fast as you can. And what instance do you think you're going to be able to run as fast as you can, really as fast as you can, not after you've done all this work, not after you've compromised your energy systems, the muscles, mechanical function, but when you are strong, when you are capable. The reason that I wound up with a twice a week protocol is because it, once we stimulate the muscle to respond upwardly, to increase protein synthesis, to replenish energy stores okay and repair micro damage. Once that happens, we are ready to stimulate again and not before. What's the use of stimulating a process when we don't allow it to come to fruition and then try to stimulate it again when we're halfway through the transition and the adaptation phase? Okay, again.
Speaker 3:All of this, to me, is logical, supported by physiology. This isn't Dr Ben Mead of the story. This is all supported by exercise physiology and applied anatomy. I didn't invent that stuff, but I think I've done pretty good making benefit from the knowledge and putting that together. So all we have to do in order to make a muscle respond upwardly and to become stronger is we have to basically make it work harder than it's used to, and by definition, the harder we work, the less of that work we can take. If I ask you to sprint, you ain't going a mile, okay. And then what we know about muscle fiber recruitment and orderly recruitment and the different strata of muscle fibers, meaning how they're energized, like politically or oxidatively what characteristics they have endurance, strength or combination they're of. If we understand those physiological parameters exercise physiology then we understand how we can manipulate those variables to our advantage to get the biggest bang for our buck. I mean, it's as simple as I can explain that.
Speaker 2:And talk a little bit more about those different types of muscle fibers.
Speaker 3:Okay, this is something that I think a lot of people don't understand, yeah, and this is a lot of people, including exercise physiologists and certainly physicians and physical therapists, and some of who are very nice people, I'm sure. But the point is, if we understand that if we are doing low level, steady state work, which I wouldn't even call exercise but activity, there is no need for the muscle fibers go type one, type two A, type two AB, type two B and that's the old way. But I think it's really critical that we keep that instead of a three tier Okay. So what happens? When we're hanging around, like right now, to sit up, we're using type two A muscle fibers. Maybe if we just walk around to the refrigerator around, we're using type two A. They are almost completely oxidative, they rely on fat. They can go on forever because they're not demanding of the metabolic support system anything unusual. And as a species, for example, 85 to 90% of the population to this day walks most efficiently at between 3.2 and 3.7 miles an hour. So that tells me genetically, this is how we moved as a tribe, as a family. This is hardwired into our genetics and it makes the least imposition on our metabolism, because we are meant to do this day after day, hour after hour in some cases, but it doesn't stimulate an adaptation, it just allows a performance without much inroad.
Speaker 3:As we get to walk a little faster or maybe up an incline, we have to call upon the next strata of muscle fibers because the ones that we commonly use for an easy going stroll are not capable of producing the force at the rate they have to and sustaining it to support that demand of that uphill walk. As we get into a little bit of a jog, maybe we know we sent some danger as a primitive civilization. Then we have to produce more force per unit of time and we have another strata of muscle fiber that will come in and it's now starting to use some glycogen, some sugar, which we know is a short burning fuel source. But it's stimulating these fibers that have the power capacity to support that demand. And then when the lion sneaks its ass out the window, we have to run like hell. Now we've got these type 2B muscle fibers, but understand that the other fibers that I mentioned going up these strata have to be working at their hardest or else they would not stimulate, they would not ask these type 2B fibers, they wouldn't go up the line and demand that those things work unless they couldn't handle the load. So therefore, the logical takeaway is that when those type 2B muscle fibers, those high intensity, those pretty much purely glycolytic fibers, are working, all of the other fibers have to be working. They don't shut off. They have to be working as hard as they can or else they would not recruit upward. So, nirvana, if we can get the type 2B muscle fibers, the high intensity glycolytic fibers, to reach failure, then we have successfully stimulated all of our muscle fibers to the highest extent that we can.
Speaker 3:Now, what do we know about how long it takes to reach failure? In physiology, you can be a world class athlete, you can be a sedentary person and pretty much you're going to fail between 30 and 90 seconds, given certain physiological I'm sorry, physical demands and things like that. But that's pretty much, and it doesn't matter if you're a elite athlete or a sedentary person. That's how long that energy system can deliver its highest level of fueling at its highest rate. Once we do that and we reach what we call mechanical failure, we can't do it anymore. We have to stop or slow down. That is externally representing internal threshold, meaning that's as much as I have to do to stimulate a global and a local response to this muscle intervention.
Speaker 3:Once you reach threshold in physiology, you do not need to reach more threshold. In fact there's no such thing. Threshold is threshold. Once you put the rock to the edge of the cliff and it starts going, it's going. If you try to do more than threshold or do it many more times, it makes number one, it makes it more difficult to recover and therefore the recovery is incomplete. And then we start to produce damage and too much of our adrenaline, cortisol, kind of emergency fueling that now starts to have a negative consequence.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's answering your question, but that's how I think about it To just unpack and clarify that what you're saying is whether you're a trained athlete or sedentary, when you're operating near your capacity, you're basically going to have that same amount of time to failure, but obviously there's going to be a difference between what level of capacity between a trained and a trained athlete.
Speaker 3:Subjectively. I've got a 400-pound man who has an exercise in 35 years and how can I have him work at high intensity and get to that threshold level? Well, if he can walk, I would ask him to go up to the wall and bend his knees about 10 degrees and try to hold that wall seat or partial wall seat. You'll notice that within 10 to 15 seconds, because he doesn't even have the capacity to detect those muscles, but those muscle fibers will start to come into play. His legs will shake and he's done it. He has now done high intensity exercise and that threshold will time will definitely respond upwardly very, very quickly, because this is an emergency.
Speaker 3:You're telling anybody there's an emergency. You just couldn't handle it that well. Look at him. Let's get on the stick here. If I wanted to get those Type 2B fibers from my world-class gold medal athletes that I train, I got to do some heavy-duty stuff. But if they're going as hard as they can, they're still not going to last more than 90 seconds. I hate to be a numbers person but that's really given mechanical and neurological possible differences, but there's not that much variance. They're going to fail at that point. Navy SEAL, baby SEAL, I don't care who you are.
Speaker 2:But it's only really when we get to that failure of the 2B muscle fibers that we're then going to stimulate the muscle growth.
Speaker 3:That is, the. Those are the muscle fibers that I perpetuate the most because that's how they adapt. Those are the muscle fibers that are purely glycolytic. Those are the muscle fibers that stimulate an adrenaline response to release free fatty acids. Those are the muscle fibers that send out the signals for interleukin-6 and interleukin-15 for anti-inflammatory and visceral fat response. Those are the muscle fibers that drive the core recycle to have the liver drive more glycogen back into the system, glucose into the system, to support this emergency which is driving a glucose and glycogen breakdown at such a high rate that it creates an emergency.
Speaker 3:That's yes, but are there benefits of only going to the type 3? Yes, there are. There absolutely are. But if we can get to those type 2s, we can reduce the time, we can do it in a safe manner and we can produce all of the benefits that muscles can drive. And there are numerous I mean, I'm sorry, numerous pathways that they can drive, that we want to drive if we want to become better fat burners, if we want to become leaner, if we want to reduce insulin resistance, any of the things that you can mention in metabolic health, the attributes we can pretty much stimulate through exercise and, in most cases synergistically with diet. They'll get me wrong, but in some cases, at a rate and a level and an amplitude that we can't die alone, there's no question about it.
Speaker 1:You just tied together the cortisol adrenaline response with strength training, resistance training, in a way I've never heard it tied together. I'm going to reflect back to you what I think, I told, what I heard you say. Correct me where I'm wrong. The type of training that is most efficient for building strength is training that simulates an emergency for your body.
Speaker 3:We are trying to initiate controlled emergency, exactly Okay.
Speaker 1:That's, that's. I've never heard anything remotely.
Speaker 3:Understanding that if we can do that, we can derive these pathway signaling benefits at the highest level, including and Phil would be interested in this including cardio response, cardiac response, blood pressure response, end diastolic pressure, peripheral resistance decreased. I mean, this stuff all happens at high intensity. Okay, for example, this aerobic and aerobic thing. Okay, we know there's a mechanism called respiratory bullshit which measures whether we're burning fat purely or whether they're burning glycogen purely, sugar or fat. And in the middle is 85 and at purely fat is 0.7. Purely glycogen is 1.0. Okay, a pure fat burner, which there is there is probably no such person on the planet, although Tom Dagestino said he has measured some will burn fat. We'll have a respiratory quotient of 0.7. The only time most people on the planet get anywhere near a 0.7 purely fat burning metabolism is during recovery from high intensity anaerobic exercise. That's the most aerobic, mitochondrally pure aerobic metabolism we can drive is after high intensity, during recovery from anaerobic high intensity exercise.
Speaker 2:And does that? Is that sort of agnostic to diet that you get that response? Or is that going to be magnified?
Speaker 3:Well, you might, it's okay. That's a pretty good question, phil, because that's pretty nuanced, okay. So what you're asking me is maybe would some people get to that level more readily, and probably, I would think, if you are good at burning fat, then you may be good at replenishing. In other words, the recovery from glycogen depletion is purely at the site of the mitochondria. We are now driving as much possible fueling of an ATP production in a purely aerobic sense from when we recover from this glycolytic, which is very difficult for. So now we're talking about going from cytosol and not to get too deep in the weeds, but going from cytosol energy production to mitochondrial energy production, because now we are allowed to push as hard as we can into those mitochondria right, and we can now work at its highest possibility. That's the benefit of this high intensity exercise. In fact, again, hopefully not too deep in the weeds. But the difference between mitochondrial morphology or geography, if you will, between fast-twitch muscle fibers or modi units and slow-twitch oxidative, is that they actually form differently. The actual morphology is different and the pushing of this morphology in the fast-twitch fibers assumes that we're pushing the lower morphology and benefit and fiber ratio of mitochondria, for example, square units, the unit of mass to its highest extent. How do we push aerobic response? We push it anaerobically. That's why interval training if you want to go into VO2 max, that's kind of because two things.
Speaker 3:Let me get this out because I think a lot of people aren't interested in this recently. What are the two factors? Diabetes, obesity, smoking, two factors that are most highly correlated to longevity. Number one muscle strength. If you're in the top third for your age and gender and muscle strength, you are 40% less likely to die of cancer and 40% more likely to live to be 100. Muscle strength alone. What's number two? Right after that, fitness or VO2 max. How do we acquire muscle strength and fitness? Duh, all right, exercise. Now how do we acquire muscle strength and VO2 max in a limited exposure, high intensity, interval training, whole body. This is what the basis of everything that I do the twice a week, the slow, the whole body, the sequence, the recovery is based upon. It just so happens to be that if you wanted to spend $30,000 a month on a longevity program, 80% of that would be on improving your strength and your VO2 max. So save yourself a lot of dollars.
Speaker 1:I'm loving this. Phil, this is right down my alley. I was just looking at our listener demographics this morning and the bulk of our listenership is over 40. So is folks for whom the natural strength and fitness and wellness of youth is well far back in the rearview mirror. So this is what our listenership wants to hear. Would it be possible to just give us a brief overview of what a typical workout looks like for you?
Speaker 3:Again, every aspect of I mean I've thought about this way more than a regular human should think about anything and I think I've studied it objectively. But every aspect of this system has a benefit, I think. And I may be stacking a deck minutely with every one of these, but I hope I stack the deck completely at this point in time as efficiently as I possibly can. So we are going to work all slow movements. I want to reduce, I want to increase safety, I want to reduce mechanical stress on the joints. And we're going to work twice a week because if we stimulate this whole body growth and response in the muscle system and the support systems, it takes in the literature 48 to at least 60 hours to recover. So why try to do this again? Why try to get a suntan by sitting in the sun in the middle of the day five days in a row for five hours. You're not going to get a suntan, you're going to get sun poisoning in the listeners. Okay, so we stimulate at a high level, we respond and recuperate at a reasonable level so that we're ready to stimulate again and adapt upwardly. So slow movements twice a week, full body exercise I think we can probably support this, but I can support this, certainly clinically, over 50 years. If we train, if we exercise all the major muscle groups in the body, there is not only this local benefit in each muscle group and area that we exercise, but there is a global response that is second to none improving VO2 max, improving circulatory response, improving endothelial health, no2 response, endiastolic pressure, oxygen extraction in the respiratory system All of these things happen globally. So exercise produces local, local and global responses. I want to take advantage of both of those situations, both of those responses. So, whole body twice a week, slow movements, large to small muscles. Why? Because I think in it appears that the large muscles instigate the most demanding energy wise and they instigate the global response very significantly. And we can continue this global response readily, even with small muscles, if we start with the larger muscles and make this global in road.
Speaker 3:So let's go into something maybe everybody is kind of familiar with, but not really High intensity interval training. Hit, okay, we've heard this and some people are afraid of it. But I assure them, slow training, it's high, as high intensity as you can do, or your grandmother you can do, or your high school athlete can do. So high intensity interval training to me is almost redundant, because if you are to encounter high intensity exercise, it must by nature be intimate. You cannot sustain it. Okay, I can, utilically exclusive. Intensity, duration, mutually exclusive.
Speaker 3:So we're going to treadmill, we're going on a litigal machine and we do 10 intervals. That's common and it's really beneficial. A lot of studies show how wonderful that is. I think there's a flaw. The flaw is this I'm doing the same movement two, three, four, seven times Walking, jogging, running, elliptical up and in, whatever it is.
Speaker 3:How likely do you think it is that those fifth, sixth, seventh 10 intervals are going to really be high intensity? Ah, you say, wow, it's so hard at the end. High intensity does not mean hard or exhausted or painful. It can be all of those things. But high intensity has to do with the possibility, the probability, the hope that we are stimulating those type 2B muscle fibers at their highest level of capacity. So how likely is it that after five or six or seven of these intervals that we're going to be capable? It will be difficult and demanding, but how likely is it I say unlikely that we're really stimulating those muscle fibers? How do I get around that?
Speaker 3:I do my intervals like this, with a fresh set of muscles for each interval, so capable of working hard, fresh set of muscles. I do my quadriceps, I do my hamstrings, I do my lats and traps, I do my deltoids, I do my pecs, my bicep. Okay, every interval that I do is performed with a fresh set of muscles. Now I am making inroads, I am demanding my global support, still with very little rest in between. I need to rest in between now, but now with a fresh set of muscles.
Speaker 3:So I am getting ultimate global and local benefits from exercise, which is kind of really the apex. It's really what we're trying to do and then get out of dodge and recover and then secondarily now be active, which means you don't have to do more exercise, hard exercise, but don't be sedentary. So to me, exercise is formal, it's dictated, it's structured, it's intermittent. Activity can be daily, it can be leisurely, it can be recreational in order to offset the problems we have with sedentary behavior. Sedentary behavior means sitting on your butt and not moving much. But if you can move a little, or if you want to move a lot, as long as it doesn't interfere with your recovery, which would be, pretty difficult from the high intensity exercise.
Speaker 3:I want you to be active. So sedentary behavior I've done studies with ASU, arizona State, and we've determined even if you get up three or four times during a work day and walk around and stretch a little bit, it can offset sedentary behavior, which is supposed to be analogous to the risk of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
Speaker 1:You said something that, again, I want to make sure I understood this. We failed to mention that I'm the token idiot here.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, don't flatter yourself. You've got a couple idiots here. I'm there.
Speaker 1:You said. I thought you said that this type of I'm high intensity, low set, low rep exercise my words, not yours. I thought you said it will increase your VO2 max.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, app. So Lutely is, and I think, phil, if you know.
Speaker 1:So I wanna make sure that I'm still getting this.
Speaker 3:Because, VO2 max okay.
Speaker 1:I'm good, I go out here. Literally just on the other side of the wall is my workout area. Okay, and I go do, however, five reps of deadlifts. I go do five deadlifts.
Speaker 3:Five sets. Well, okay, so I'll Five reps I mean, I'm gonna get it clear, just five repetitions.
Speaker 1:I go do five reps at some weight, whatever that happens to be, and then I gotta do a number of sets, okay, and am I just breathing really, really hard at the end of these sets? Am I? I'm not clear about the amount. Of this is very different. I'm trying to understand how I'm helping my VO2 max with this slow lifting.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, yeah, okay. Vo2 max has been in. Phil and I were taught, I'm sure, that it is the gold standard for measuring aerobic capacity and cardiovascular function. Okay, Well, in fact it's not. It is a measurement of the ability of the muscles being worked on a treadmill or a bike, the ability for them to consume oxygen and utilize it to produce energy. It is, in fact, a muscle test. It is not a cardio. Right now, all of us could do a VO2 max test on a bike, so that we don't ride bikes or on a treadmill and come up with a certain level of 10 mechs or whatever the hell. It is okay, All right. The limitation is not our heart and respiratory system. Circulatory system is capable at this time when we measure 10 mechs, as our max probably have 12, 13 mechs. I guarantee it. It's the site of the working muscle that is the limitation.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 3:All right. Now, if I increase the ability of this muscle to work at the type two B fiber level, then what happens to all of my support muscle fibers? Now, 60% max. If my max improves 20%, if my strength improves, 20% would now be equivalent to 70, 75% max. In other words, 60% max would be nothing for us. Now if I measure your strength by seeing how many pushups you can do and you just happen to be capable of bench pressing 400 pounds, then pushups are not a strength test because it makes no. You could do 100 pushups.
Speaker 3:All right, understand that this strength and endurance and this energy production and utilization continuum exists. Right, that makes sense. So, and I was a chief investigator on a simple study, I had 100 subjects, 50 did three hours and 20 minutes of zone two training on an average a week and the other group did two 15 minute smart or this high intensity whole bodies. Okay, now, after six, eight weeks I can't remember, it's 20 years, but anyway, after the time period of the study, the running group, the jogging group, the bicycling group, the VO2 max kind of we thought group, improved 11%. Very good. The group that did two 15 minute sessions a week improved VO2 max 33%, three times that of the ones who spent three hours and 20 minutes doing it, and it's not that remarkable if you understand the mechanics of what is going on. Okay, so these muscles were now capable of utilizing energy at such a rate that this lower level rates that would have been 60% six weeks ago is now 40%, and they could do that with them. Okay, so once we understand that continuum and there are plenty of studies, a great book on this subject, marty Jibala, g-i-b-a-l-a from McMaster up in the. It's called the one minute workout and he presents maybe a dozen, 20 studies of how interval training and there could be intervals of 30 seconds, 10 seconds, two minutes, up the four minute intervals, different levels of intensity, recovery that has proven to be so much more efficient.
Speaker 3:Okay, what happens to us unfortunately in this field and I know some of the guys personally, they're very smart guys is they confuse performance training, and most of these guys are endurance cyclists or endurance runners with cardiovascular fitness, okay, and the fitness of the health and the respiratory system, okay, they confuse it. You do, if you are training to do a 200 mile bike race, you better, sure, get your ass out there and do a lot of long distance training okay, and it's not the physiology, it's the fact that your body has to work under adverse conditions through what we call physiological benefit. Okay, okay, so, but they confuse that. The purest of indigo, samala, great smart guy, nicest man on the planet, says, was asked and do we know what zone two training is? It's kind of like steady state, just by definition. Steady state means to me nothing's really gonna change, okay, you're not asking your body to do anything except, dude, just keep doing stuff. Steady state, no imposition, okay.
Speaker 3:But somebody asked if he thought four hours of zone two training was really enough and he said no. So I'm saying okay, even if his answer is right, which it isn't. But even if it was right, who in the hell is gonna prescribe to people that four hours of zone two training a week is not enough? I want you to do more. Who's gonna take this prescription? Okay? Who's gonna swallow that pill? You know? And if I say you can do 15 minutes twice a week, it is behaviorally palatable and sustainable long term, which I think are very important aspects of a plan.
Speaker 1:I'm in no violent agreement with you, yeah.
Speaker 2:Most people would agree, but I'm just wondering so would we? It sounds like we should then expect that power lifters should have, you know, vo2 maxes that are equivalent to the, you know, the tour de France athletes.
Speaker 3:But to my knowledge, it's not so, no, no, no, it's more nuanced than that. Um, I give you some things that would blow your mind. Okay, um, the people that have the Highest what we call muscle endurance, to work at a high level for a long period of time. I'm not tour de France bicyclists, they're not power lifters, they're bodybuilders. Okay, because they well, because they have this muscle capacity that I'm talking about. But they also train like hell, do a lot of training. They're trying to achieve a super physiological condition Wherein protein has to be ingested every two or three hours.
Speaker 3:You train two or three times. I mean, some of them do, some do less, okay, but but some of these things are not so intuitive. Okay, but, yes, a lot of your. If they have to make weight, and there that weight lifted for a power lift is their VO to max. Unfortunately, the fuse a little by the fact that the guys you're talking about a probably 250 pounds, but if you took to the hundred forty five pounds, hundred sixty one pounds, hundred eighty one pounds, those, those guys have VO to max through the roof. You put them on a, you put those guys that can. You know that that at a hundred forty five pounds can swap six hundred fifty pounds. You put them on a bike and try to get them tired.
Speaker 1:Forget it, okay it ain't about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, forget about it. It ain't happen. Okay so, yes, okay so. And I think that those exaggerated examples Diffuse the importance and the relevance of what I'm getting at. Okay, the responses to certain physiological stimuli are known, and, and the way we measure now listen, the way we measure them may be flawed and maybe so VO to max wouldn't be the best way to measure that, but that's a, that's a distinct possibility. But I'm not going there because I think it's a decent way to test. I mean, we use it. What the hell is a stress test is basically a VO to max test, right? We? We interpret mechanically that this is as much as this person can do and and this is the level they achieve. Okay, but I'll tell you another interesting story, so you'd like this one.
Speaker 3:When I first started training people in New York, I had firemen and policemen had to take a stress test and fitness test every year or something. Some of these guys were smokers and drinkers. There's nobody gonna go out and run on the track. So I told him here's what I want you to do with training you here twice a week. Okay, we're doing this stuff. I want you to find a treadmill and start to walk on it to get used to walking on a treadmill. That's a whole another thing. That's a skill level. That's how, how efficient are you at using your endurance and your strength? Okay, that's a whole different thing. And just do it.
Speaker 3:You know, they blew away their stress test. Okay, I mean, because that's what they were measuring the strength of the coarsen, your glutes, and they have strings, okay, and you know, and being able to do it on a treadmill up and in, that, that's a skilled aspect of performance, okay. But uh, yeah, that's how I realized after a while. This is this VO2 max thing If I can make people stronger. I presented a big study one time. In one of them, the hoody, snooty PhD guys going around said to me Well, well, you mentioned VO2 max. The fact that they did strength training attenuated the results. I said you think I'm right at attenuated the results. It made them better.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, let's um, let's touch on kind of the other important aspect of muscle building. Besides, the activity Is going to be giving your body the building blocks and the fuel that it needs. So let's talk about protein when it comes to muscle building, and you know you mentioned muscle protein synthesis, and this is something that I think has been very you know, maybe misunderstood by a lot of people. So talk a little bit about your, your perception. You know, what people should know about how to give their body the proper building materials so that they can take advantage of doing this exercise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, good question. In order for muscles to grow, you have to have two of three factors for sure. You have to have some Either hormonal or mechanical stress, okay, so the stress is that mechanical stress is the exercise. Hormonal stress could be H, vh, testosterone, but you still need some mechanical stress and you need protein because we're stimulating pathways, okay, that utilize protein and especially some Amino acid. You know, argeny and stuff like that. In other words, the ratio protein.
Speaker 3:We can get into this a whole subject. The ratio protein is kind of important, but if you're eating you know you meats and fish and flesh foods and Things like that, eggs, you're getting a pretty good, you're getting your proportion. You probably won't be Compromised with the amino acids that are the basic chain that you need. Okay, there are other amino acids not quite as important, but you get full amino acid, seven essential minos, from that stuff. You're in good shape. However, you need to have enough so that you're not only going to supply the amino acids, so that you're not only going to supply the body with enough protein to make these structures, fibers and things like that, but also to support that mechanism to repair and adapt upwardly. And so what happened? And including bones, including blood vessels, including, you know, muscle fibers and things like that. And so it seems that many people, especially women, I think women, I think their protein deficits have a lot to do with their fear of fat, because to them protein is steak and over each steak I'm going to get fat, I'm going to get a heart attack, and so they stay away from that. So I think, just by association, they don't get enough protein. And I think, if you understand the government guidelines of what is a point eight per kilogram of body weight grams of protein, I think it's Below that you are, you, you're in a deficit. So that's not this the goal standard to try to achieve. If we turn and maintain muscle, and as we get older, muscle turnover Is a little bit compromised.
Speaker 3:You, it seems that some of the studies indicate maybe a little more, certainly more, not a little more, but more protein would be beneficial and have no harmful effects. In fact, recently and I think it's in cell, but don't quote me on this with an alast, I don't know 90 days, what we were always told you can only absorb a certain amount of protein per meal or per Serving or whatever. Now this, this one came out and I've seen I can verify this through my clinical observation you can take a whole bundle of protein in and you get prolonged, exaggerated and accelerated protein synthesis for very long periods of time from a large ballless of protein. In other words, I think this is up to 120 grams in a serving in a you know exposure. So I don't think you have to necessarily have 30 grams of protein five times a day or anything like that, I guess.
Speaker 3:If you want to, maybe that's cool. But I think not to be afraid of, like some of us do, intermittent fasting or, you know, eat one main meal a day or something I wouldn't worry about, you know, the whole day not getting Protein, although some people say your first meal of the day or when you wake up because you've been fasting, and then basically a Degraded, a degrading state, you know about top of gene, all this stuff, that you should ingest protein right away. Maybe, maybe it's true, and I'm the jury's out and so you break your fast by having protein when you have deprived yourself of protein while you're sleeping, which is, you know, pretty much unavoidable so I think you do have to get enough.
Speaker 3:You do have to get more protein than one thinks, more protein than the government. You know, the US Food and drug administration say this is your, this is, get it this much protein. I think that's so underrated. It's to me it's like vitamin D they don't know what the hell we're talking about. Okay, but in any case, yes. So protein, yes, good sources, you know, um, dairy, I mean you can have protein supplements.
Speaker 3:Some people say, well, I can't eat that much protein. Well, I make it, make a. You know, I have, right here where we're sitting, I have collagen and I have creatin. Okay, and I think college is important because as we get older, we lose some of that elasticity. But college is also important to build tissue. And then creatin. I think really Cratton, I'm sorry, no create a normal metal creating. Well, in the old-day, older days, 30 years ago. So what was to build muscle? Because you increase phosphoric creatin, what you do, which is a fuel, which is a whole other thing besides aerobic and anaerobic, you have a phosphogen Energy delivery, but I won't go into that. But in any case, it's a good idea Because now the studies are coming out unless I would say, at least 10, 12 years of cognitive function improvements with creatin supplementation.
Speaker 3:So you know there's ways you can get your protein, and you know all of these. When I say supplementation, what does that mean? That means, in addition to, okay, supporting. So what does that mean? That means you want to eat this stuff, you want to eat food, and you can supplement in the case where you may be deficient with the way you eat or how you eat. So, yes, I don't know if I mentioned your question, though, but yeah, that protein is really important For osteoporosis. I mean that that one real one of my little deals on osteoporosis. Skeletal muscles are Attached to the skeleton. Guess what I call a skeletal muscle? Right? If you increase protein synthesis in the skeletal muscle by doing this exercise and eating protein and you know, sleeping enough, having stress and all of the crap okay, if you do that, you automatically, absolutely increase protein synthesis in the bone.
Speaker 3:Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa say that again if you increase protein synthesis in the muscle, you increase protein synthesis in the bones that are attached to those muscles. It happens all the time. If you go into space, you have sarcopenia, okay, you have osteopenia, okay. If you go through menopause, if you have these different conditions, you have sarcopenia, you have osteopenia or osteoporosis. Right, we know that as we get older, sarcopenia is a big thing, meaning if we're losing muscle, if we losing muscle, there is no need to keep the density in the bones that support those muscles. Oh, of course, space. If you put an arm in a cast, you have osteopenia, osteoporosis okay, you have sarcopenia in five days, ten days, okay. If you get it back, then come back. Okay, with a very rare exception. You want to increase bone density, increase protein synthesis in the muscle.
Speaker 1:That makes sense, that that puts the pieces together, ah. Very important I have two different questions I want to ask you that are actually at opposite ends of the age spectrum. One is Very short and one is maybe even shorter. The first one is that when you introduced yourself you said very early you were a low carb, high protein guy. That was. There was no way in the world that that was was popular.
Speaker 3:Except Jack, think about this, that's okay, have ya? I, I, my business, I always have thought and I still think in many cases a lot of our businesses body composition If we solve the body composition problem, if you're leaner and more muscular, we solve a lot of health problems. Okay, and most people want to exercise and do these things for a cosmetic reason at least, as some reason. Okay, so who were the leanest, most muscular people that I knew and dealt with? Bodybuilders. What do bodybuilders do? I protein, low carb. They ate chicken and broccoli the six weeks before. I mean, that's what they ate chicken breast and broccoli six weeks before a contest. So I, you know I'm a kid and I'm saying you know these people and again, they're freaky and all I understand. But I said, and then I started to look into it and I realized you could eat all the damn protein you wanted.
Speaker 3:And I had just did this with people and just this guys that I you know training and gals that I was training I said try this and see. And to lose weight, I mean I remember we had a thing called it was one of the most successful weight loss. It was basically protein sparing, modified fasting. Okay, well, you had a supplement nature's way W-H-E-Y because it was. It was weight protein. Okay, so you had this nature's way in the morning and you had some in the lunch and for dinner you had a big salad and a protein and okay, and people loved it.
Speaker 3:They will say that they lost weight and it was basically high protein, low carb. That was it, and I had very good success with it. Then I started to read about it and then, even before Atkins, I think it was still in a guy in New York, I mean. So there were people doing this stuff and if you read some of the old stuff, I mean it worked, it was healthy and it worked and people who had no, you know no problems and did achieve this body composition change of lower fat and higher muscle.
Speaker 1:So you basically just observed that these bodybuilders, this is what they eat and clearly it's working for them. Okay, that's, that makes a lot of sense. Now let me go to the other end of the age spectrum. We had Mark Ripitow on the show a couple of months ago, and he advocates a method where progressive overload is a lot of exercise after exercise, and I took him up on it. I thought to myself you know, I need to get back to this. And I started lifting again. And you know, workout after workout, I'm adding five pounds and it doesn't take very long to add a whole lot more weight than you were doing 10 weeks ago. And the thought has occurred to me how long do you just keep getting stronger? There's got to be an upper limit.
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:You know, and you've got a few years on me, not too many, but you've got a few.
Speaker 3:So oh no, there's certainly an upper limit, but there's again some nuance involved. The way I describe this process. This system is not the only way to achieve good goals. I mean, that's obvious. I mean I'm not that you know, I'm not that filled with hubris that I think I've discovered this and this is the only way to do it. Look out there, there's plenty of people who don't do this way and do fine.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm saying that if we use safety, efficiency, time constraint, longevity and all these ways to measure the efficacy of an exercise program, I think it's hard to beat. But can you do it other ways? Can you do more? Can you do it more often? Yes, but how much of that, what's? What you do is actually productive and how much is nonproductive or even counterproductive? That's my question, and I think I have some good answers. But no, and can you lift more and more weight?
Speaker 3:Neurologically, you get used to the tension on your tendons. The limitation for us, lifting the heaviest weight possible, is not in the muscles per se. It is in the attaching system that have sensory neurons and sense tension to the point where damage could ensue. They are inhibitors. So when I train a lifter, if I want you to lift weight. Now this is different now than just my training for metabolic health and conditioning. Okay, function that. I try to train their attaching system. Again I try to train their tendons.
Speaker 3:So if a guy can bench press 400 pounds, that's his limit. I don't think it's his muscle limit, I think it says tendon receptor inhibitor limit. So how do I overcome that? I have him handle more than 400 pounds by doing a negative or a support. So now his tendons will relax, so to speak, and be less inhibitory to allowing his muscles to perform at their highest level. I disinhibit the inhibitors and I've trained two national powerlifting collegiate champions with my system. Okay, and then you know. And then lifters have their own conventions and rituals and you get into craziness. But physiologically, if I can disinhibit your inhibitors, you right now could lift more weight than you can can lift. If I don't do that, does that make any sense?
Speaker 1:It does.
Speaker 3:Nobody, nobody talks about. I've never heard of talk. That's obvious to me. What?
Speaker 1:So so you know, I keep lifting. You've been lifting for 50 years. Yeah, maybe 60 years. When did you? When did you hit? Or how heavy do you lift, and how long do you lift that heavy? In terms of age, is there a point toward the end of your life when the amount you can lift.
Speaker 3:So some limit. In my case, almost all of my limitations are skeletal in nature joints. Okay, now I played a lot of sports and football and hockey and tennis, believe it or not for knees and martial arts and stuff. So my joints are screwed up. Okay, those are my limitations now. And I think now some muscle now I noticed in the last five years or so I think my muscle just maybe can't do what they could do before, but you I have seen, for example, if you're asking me how and lifting the weight is not a direct indication of your, really even your, of your strength. It is a way to demonstrate your strength but not to actually measure it, if that's makes sense. And then there's a little nuance.
Speaker 1:I get that. There's a nuance there.
Speaker 3:Okay, but I have had people well into their 80s. I have people right now, well into their 80s, who have gotten stronger and put on muscle, measured and obvious, from the time they were 77 to the time they're 84. I mean, and so they can lift. Actually some of these people can lift more weights now than they could when they were 40. But I mean, that again is a gross measurement, but it's also maybe a little bit of a hopeful sign.
Speaker 3:And I've seen that I have not seen the degradation of people that continue to do this stuff that you would assume. I just have not seen it. And either, either I'm lucky and a special genetic, you know, group has come to see me do this thing and done my, or something, something to it. Okay, the attitude, the strength, the changing of the trajectory of aging. I mean this the reason I'm so fascinated with anti aging, because to me anti aging is just maintaining a high level of health and strength for a long period of time. Okay, the title of my next book is seriously, get strong, live long and die laughing. Okay, because get strong, you're going to live long and you're going to live a healthy life and a good life, and when it's time to go. This is going to be a time to go for everybody. You can say Listen, I did this thing as long as I could, I gave it a good shot, I wasn't disabled, I wasn't dysfunctional for a long period of time and you know, adios. I did a good job.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, well, there's, there's you. Stimulated thinking and questions. Far more questions are being asked by our listeners than we've had the ability to even answer, so undoubtedly you have ways for people to get more information.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, phil, I didn't mean to jump to the to the end here, but no, I think I was just going to say that was a great way to sum it up, and I think the title of Ben's upcoming book really nails it. But yeah, let the people know, Ben, how they can find out about more. Find out more about what you do.
Speaker 3:Um, I mean, I I'm not into this stuff that much. Apparently, I have a web page. I have no idea what it looks like. To be honest with you, I have a bunch of followers on Twitter, supposedly, and I honestly can't tell you right now how to make a tweet. I'd have to have somebody show me how to like say something I can reply yeah, I agree, or I don't agree or something. So, but Dr Benbocom, I think, is the website or something and I don't know exactly what it says, but and I also have on there, I think I even have my phone number.
Speaker 3:I take messages, email Dr Benbo, Dr Benbo at Hotmailcom. I mean, I I have like a few information requests I have to do today. I try to answer all of them and if I don't answer, it means I just forgot it or I lost it. So you're gonna always try to get a hold of me. But you know, and I do all the low carb USA probably has 10 or 15 of my presentations and demonstrations and stuff that you go. And then apparently, apparently I have a lot of YouTube things which I know nothing about. How they got there, but there's a bunch of stuff on YouTube too. So take a look.
Speaker 2:And I'll also throw in a plug for the first book. You know, 15 minutes to fitness. Yeah, it's a solid book.
Speaker 3:I think it's eroded at a conversational level. It tells you how to do stuff, if you can do it in a gym or you can do it at home. Yeah, that 15 minutes of fitness I keep forgetting in my, you know, publishes they want to see amatize, you know, look me up and you'll see that comes up, I guess.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, it was great, great having you. I think this was a very informative conversation. You know, I'm gonna say I think there are few people who understand the science of muscle building as well as you do, and thank you for sharing with the audience and it's been a pleasure being able to interact with you as much as I have at the conferences and such yeah great, great stuff. Like I said, you walk the walk besides talking to talk.
Speaker 3:So we're trying.
Speaker 2:Yep Good one.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, I'm going to speak to the listeners now. Check the show notes. This guy's stuff is worth checking out, whether you're a beginning lifter at 18, or an old fart even older than me. Definitely worth checking out. There'll be in the show notes. Ben, such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks, so much.
Speaker 3:We'll do it again. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:All right for Dr Phillip. I'm sorry, Phil, did you say something? Dr Philip Ovedia, this has been the Stay Off my Operating Table podcast. We're glad you were here. We'll talk to you next time.