SPEAKER_03

If there was a secret quick fix, it wouldn't be a secret. I think when we focus too much on the physique, the aesthetic kind of as our only outcome, then we get a little bit lost in the sauce and we're less likely to stick with it long term. Get discouraged. We're so driven by the way we look instead of what we can do. I can tell you we're gonna be way more grateful for what we can do down the road. My hope is that when people start lifting weights, that you catch the bug because there's something really empowering about witnessing yourself get stronger.

SPEAKER_00

Dr. Lauren Calenzo Semple, welcome to the Whoop Podcast.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

I've been following you for a long time. And I think, you know, recently, I would say in the last year, you have really emerged as like this voice of reason in the space of exercise science. And I I will say personally that you've been such a welcome voice. I mean, as someone who's pretty steeped in this space and from a lot of angles, I have just genuinely appreciated your perspective and your ability to translate very complex. Well, you make the complex very simple without kind of losing the nuance. That is so hard to do. So thank you for all of your contributions, and I just can't wait to dig in today.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Um, we're gonna just talk about, you know, fitness culture in general. You know, there's a lot of claims that are being made. It gets spread, I think, faster uh due to you know the social media platforms. The chance for um misinformation is just has never been higher, I think. I'd love to just start with your background and what you've observed and why you've stepped in.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I grew up in a time where I think fitness information directed towards women was abundant, but the flavor of that has changed over time. And so I'd say before fitness for women, air quotes, yeah, was um very much geared towards quick fixes and the six-week challenge, and we're gonna promise you these dramatic body composition changes, and there was never any focus on consistency or longer-term goals. It's always lose this many pounds for summer or shredding for the wedding. 20 pounds in 10 days. Yes. And even a group fitness culture, of which I was a part because I worked as a trainer in New York City, and so while I was there, there was very much a focus on group fitness for women. And still I saw so many people with body composition goals not going about it the right way or the the most optimal way, the most goal-appropriate way. And now I see a new, more complex flavor of misinformation because it appears to be evidence-based. We're in a this time where everyone wants the science. They want that PubMed ID. Yeah. But what that means is it sounds credible. Sometimes it sounds pretty complex. And so then the take-home is well, you take my word for it. I'm not really explaining the why behind the what. And the thing about good science communication is even when physiology is complex, and it can be, we should be able to break it down for the general public to say, this is what I'm recommending, and here's why, in a way that you can understand and take in and be able to apply those principles moving forward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I you know, I think a lot of the confusion comes from, and I see this in kind of the sleep and circadian space, folks who are well educated uh about the science, maybe don't let the lay person know or the public know that there may be mouse models, or, you know, um, and and those insights are derived from not from humans, right? And and I think the women's space is, I mean, rodents don't have a menstrual cycle, to be really clear, right? But yet we are abstracting information and creating programming around those data. So maybe just talk a little bit about how should the public think, uh how do they know whether or not the scientists, the exercise physiologist who specializes in women's health is talking about actual human data?

SPEAKER_03

Aaron Powell Well, the scientists should be transparent about that. And and the message should be: based on this mechanism or based on what we have observed in a rodent model, I might hypothesize X.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

It rarely comes across that way, though, unfortunately. And so in in some cases, unless you actually have access to the data, you don't know because it's being presented as if this is something that has been observed in human women. And while rodent models and cell culture, I mean, that's kind of the basis of where many scientific questions start. The purpose is to go on and generate hypotheses that are tested in humans. And I can think of countless examples where we thought, oh, this is exciting. You know, time-restricted feeding was one of them. People thought this could be a game changer because of what was observed in rodent models. Or artificial sweeteners. People thought, oh, there's something really scary here because of what was observed in rodent models. But as you said, when we when we think about hormones, it's not an appropriate model. Even menopause, it's not an appropriate model. Metabolism is different, lifespan is different, body size is different, and of course, the types of studies that you're doing when we are deleting a gene or overexpressing a gene, all of this is is scientifically interesting, but not practically relevant. And if we're talking about exercise or nutrition, we have to pull from the most relevant human data in order to make those recommendations.

SPEAKER_00

So the advice is before you take advice, understand where those data are coming from.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Because to your point, the scientists communicating the information might not always be transparent and frankly, most of the time isn't.

SPEAKER_03

And if you're going to make a claim, you should be able to say, well, women need to do this differently, because we've observed in this study and that study that when they were performing this exercise for however many weeks, we observed the outcome of interest. Whether that's changes in body fat, changes in muscle size, changes in strength, whatever the outcome we're discussing is, then that's the data we look to to answer that question. I mean, it sounds so obvious, but it's not happening anywhere near enough.

SPEAKER_00

I know. Yeah, that's well said. There's so many misconceptions out there, but what would you say are like the three biggest myths about when when we think about just fitness?

SPEAKER_03

It's very hard to name it.

SPEAKER_00

I know, I know. And we'll we'll be we'll we'll get to more than three, but I I think just to kind of frame this up, like what are, you know, if you had to kind of create maybe a better way of thinking about it is there's three buckets, you know, and where do people get tripped up the most based on what they what they think is true but actually isn't true.

SPEAKER_03

Aaron Powell One of the biggest misunderstandings, and that's not only on the consumer side, but also on the communicator side, is who are we talking to? And so what is relevant for the new exerciser is probably or what is relevant for the elite athlete is totally irrelevant for someone just starting out on their journey. And so we're so driven by this kind of word optimization. But it's like picking out fancy bathroom fixtures when you don't have plumbing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

We have to get the foundation in place, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

So I'd say that's one. And then what I see often in my space is that because men and women are different, women need fundamentally different strategies in order to get to the same place. And the last thing I'll say is aging, and that uh what what applies as we age is is so different that again we need different strategies. And so then, you know, menopause, for example, that would kind of change the game, and what we used to work will no longer work because of an age or life transition.

SPEAKER_00

I find that conversation really interesting. And and of course, I I have visibility into loads and loads of data, you know, so I can see what starts to go off the rails is actually sleep early on in women, you know, up to four years before they indicate that they're in perimenopause, you know, and for whatever, maybe that's a a cluster of symptoms that they're feeling, that they're like, okay, I've they changed their status to perimenopause. But the thing that goes off the rail is the sleep. So but I think what people think is happening is that they don't have the ability to put on muscle anymore, or their metabolism is changing in some way. Maybe just talk through that third myth you just identified, because I think that that is really pervasive and that my body is, you know, changing so drastically, and and I don't I don't know that that's happening, or or maybe just clarify what's actually happening.

SPEAKER_03

When we talk about hormones, this is something that really resonates with people. And so the hormone conversation tends to drive a lot of this misinformation, especially with the menopause transition, because the hormonal changes are something people are living and experiencing day to day. But one, the experience from one woman can be very different from that of her neighbor, right? So there are some women who experience really debilitating symptoms and some women who just don't. And you know, there are some risk factors that we could point to, but not so much that we could say, oh, I can predict, you know, that you're gonna sail through and you're you're gonna have a rough time. The same would apply for pregnancy or even from one pregnancy to the next pregnancy within the same person. So just because there are hormonal changes, just because there are potential symptoms present, and just because when those symptoms are debilitating, they can have a downstream effect that can ultimately affect things like adherence or motivation or your willingness or ability to stay consistent. Poor sleep is a perfect example of that. If you're not sleeping well night after night after night, how are you supposed to prioritize your fitness?

SPEAKER_00

Right. It's really hard. You're just gonna move less the next day, you're gonna eat more, you know, we kind of know this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And and so when we when we think about the downstream effects, those can be real. But when we look actually what's going on physiologically, and this is where the the kind of truth starts to diverge into a lot of these myths, it would say, well, because you are over 40, or because you are peri-postmenopause, then you need to train in a different rep range, or you should no longer do zone two zone two training, or calories in, calories out no longer works for you. All these kinds of messages that really make women feel terrified and helpless.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, disempowered.

SPEAKER_03

A hundred percent. And that's the most harmful part of this, because in truth, and we know this from high quality data, yeah. What works for the younger woman also works for the perimenopausal woman, where whether it's how we gain muscle, how we gain strength, how we incre increase cardiorespiratory fitness, how we lose weight.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, all those principles are exactly the same. I love that you said that. And I it just we need to scream that from the rooftops, you know, because I think that's I think to your point, you know, I think there's nothing more paralyzing, you know, than feeling like the rules don't apply to you, that these principles don't apply to you. And you've done such a great job kind of highlighting that and um making that very, very clear. One of the things that I bump into a lot by folks who I consider my friends in the space, you know, who are really doing, I think, a lot of good work. But one of the things that I I see is that for things like particularly around hormonal therapy, a body of folks who are like, well, the data don't exist yet, so what do we just lay back and you know, just uh be in pain, you know, and and just let these symptoms like devour us, you know, and and so there's kind of that camp. And then there's the real evidence-based camp who are just, you know, who are really following the guidelines that are set forth by the menopause society. And so there's just like these two fractions, and I kind of see I observe them go at each other online. I wish that we could um just all kind of get in the same room and figure out how to how to approach this in a way that is actually helpful for the woman who is l listening to both sides and and and is actually confused. Because both come at it from such a confidence, a confident kind of pr perspective and um position that I think it makes it really hard to disambiguate what do I actually follow here. So maybe if you can just address, you know, that perspective of, well, we don't have the data. We know anecdotally that this is helpful, so let's just, you know, go for it kind of thing, versus the evidence.

SPEAKER_03

Aaron Ross Powell We have to be cautious there because I I we see this with the peptide conversation going on, where this is so driven by anecdote and there are potential real safety laser. Yes. We have to be cautious because it's always going to be a risk assessment. And I think people are so confused and so overwhelmed, and there's this sentiment that oh, doctors and scientists are gatekeeping that they're willing to try strategies that really are not evidence-based.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Um well, when we think about menopause hormone therapy, we do have very high quality data on menopause hormone therapy. Some people will point to the Women's Health Initiative and say, oh, that all of that data is crap. This is not true. Yeah, we need to stop saying that. It's some of the most valuable data we have. It was certainly misrepresented by the media. And but that's not the data.

SPEAKER_00

Every study practically is misrepresented by the media, let's be honest here.

SPEAKER_03

The media will sensationalize because they want the headlines. Um and that's unfortunate what when they do that, because the the lot the ramifications can be really long-lasting. But we know that hormone therapy can be really, really effective for menopause symptoms. And so people who are experiencing symptoms and for whom it's indicated, that's something to explore. But there are other people who are kind of saying, well, this is a longevity hack. So if we're on menopause hormone therapy, we're gonna look younger, we're gonna be thinner, we're gonna maintain our muscle mass, we'll decrease our chance of cognitive decline. And there's all these claims that make it sound like if I'm not on this, I'm really missing out on the health benefits. And that is a really exaggeration of where we are. Because as of now, other than the symptom management and potential benefits for bone, cognitive health, cardiovascular health, body composition changes, the data just really isn't there. And I I think if we can frame the conversation in a way that makes women who are suffering feel like, oh, I have a potential solution here, then that's a good thing. But also without alienating people for whom hormone therapy isn't indicated or tried it and they had a whole host of side effects, so they couldn't really stay on it and then say, wait, there's there's no data at this point to indicate that there's a longevity benefit or a cognitive health benefit or anything. I would say we can pretty confidently say that for body composition, we're not seeing a um a benefit for from menopause hormone therapy. And I think that can help just ground everybody a little bit because it's not a grounded conversation.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it really isn't. It's like completely unhinged, actually.

SPEAKER_03

I think when we look at what are what are each individual woman going through and where could they benefit, and then the go-to is always hormones, when in fact, let's say it's just sleep disruption. Well, maybe you know, cognitive behavioral therapy would be a good approach. Or maybe it's just mental health struggles. And so maybe then some sort of mental health approach where talk therapy and or medication would be the right approach. And that's not to say that the hormone therapy isn't effective for what it is, but it's not a panacea for for all.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I and I think that's the important distinction, you know, is that this might not solve your issues. How much how much is it actually placebo? Do we know? Well, we know that the placebo effect is because you get on these hormones and you're like, ah, you know, like I'm feeling better. I mean, we know that that's the most efficacious pharmacological.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, we know that for drug trials, we know that supplements.

SPEAKER_00

So I'm just curious, like, you know, and if that that is the thing, that's great. You know, like I suppose, you know, as long as there's no side effect. You know, I mean, if if you feel better, that's great. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah. Well, whenever we think that there's an intervention, then we're going to feel more positive about the outlook. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: We might move more, we might, you know, just think about our food differently or I mean some of the most fascinating placebo research is in these sham surgeries where you know some people get the knee surgery and the other group doesn't, and then they all go through the same rehab and there's no difference. I mean, so the power of the placebo effect can't be, I think, overstated. But I think it's more about feeling like you have control over something. Because we go, I go back to the the conversation we had previously about people feeling like they're they have no control, like their body isn't theirs anymore, and there's nothing they can do about it. And that is great for marketing because it um here's your solution. Yes, just pay $99, you know. Yeah, and and you know, here's your weighted vest or your vibration plate or your supplement stack, and uh and people are desperate, so they'll pay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And I wish that instead of kind of preying on that population that we would empower them with the information.

SPEAKER_00

You mentioned HRT, no association to improved cognitive function, no association to muscle building, um metabolism shifts, but you did say that there might be some bone benefits. Can you just talk about those data?

SPEAKER_03

Well, it depends on the country you're in. So in some places it's actually approved for bone, and in some countries it's not, but uh it's been observed as sort of a secondary benefit. So the primary indication would be for symptom management, but then you'd see, well, uh these over time, you know, if we're doing DEXA scans and we're seeing less bone loss with people who are on hormone therapy. But again, if you have a bone-specific concern, then perhaps an osteoporosis type medication that either slows down bone turnover would would perhaps be more appropriate. Because when you're thinking about taking hormones, it's not necessarily going to be side effect-free. There are different ways that you can we we talk about hormone therapies if it's kind of this one size fits all thing, but it's not as well. You know, some for some women who contraception is still a concern, then maybe it's actually a hormonal contraceptive. It's and um and so when we have symptoms as a concern, it feels more like a this makes sense. But when you have someone for where it's it's just osteopenia or maybe uh previous fracture or family history of osteoporosis without the symptoms, then maybe you're having a different conversation.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And just mechanistically, as estrogen declines, like what is the rate of bone loss? I can't imagine like, oh, your estrogen is declining. All of a sudden, like your bone, you know, like it takes it's very gradual and it's slow. And presumably, if you have, you know, if you've been lifting weights for 20 years prior to perimenopause, menopause, you're probably fine.

SPEAKER_03

Well, there's a huge amount of individual variability. Yeah. Right? And so when we think of unlike muscle, bone mass peaks in our mid-20s, and then we're kind of stuck maintaining what we have. Yeah. Whereas with muscle, we can start lifting weights at 80 and gain muscle. Right. So unfortunately, it's really driven by genetics and the behaviors when we're children, when we're developing. And so, you know, if you're eating a nutritious diet and you're physically active throughout childhood and adolescence and you're setting yourself up for more success, hopefully. But again, there's a huge Huge, huge, huge genetic component. And the same thing with the degree to which we lose bone. So there will be some people who have been physically active their whole lives and done, you know, quote unquote everything right, but because of that genetic predisposition, they will start to lose bone and an intervention might be appropriate. But those interventions can be really effective. And they're not, and they can be short-term. Interesting. So, but certainly we want to make sure that we're lifting weights. And for some people, doing impact training is something that they enjoy. But lifting weights is always going to be my go-to for bone because we want people to lifting weights for muscle. So it's like a two-for-one benefit.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, people do.

SPEAKER_03

And well, we also, I think, when we think about bone, we have to think about why we care about bone mineral density as a measure. And it's really a proxy for fracture risk. So we also want to think about fall prevention. It's not just the number on the scan printout. So I think incorporating some kind of balance training, and I would do that again through resistance training. You can do single leg exercises, you can do something like a walking lunge where you're more likely to be able to catch yourself when you fall because you have that kinesthetic awareness. You're able to move through space under load. And so if you catch yourself off balance, then you're less likely to have that fall and subsequent fracture.

SPEAKER_00

I I did want to ask you about hormonal birth control. And, you know, because I think that's another, you know, there are two camps with that too. You know, the the folks that are like, you know, this is ruining your life, you know, it's masking, you know, all these underlying kind of potential issues that you might have. Maybe just talk about that debate and help us cut through that noise.

SPEAKER_03

The irony is that the people who often push this very anti-birth control messaging are almost always huge fans of menopause hormone therapy.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. So I I make it make sense.

SPEAKER_03

I don't I I can't.

SPEAKER_01

Make it make sense. I I just the disconnect is just it's excruciating. Yeah. I mean, right?

SPEAKER_03

It really blows me away. Yeah, me too. Um what gets so lost.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like I'm for the first time saying some of this stuff out loud. No, I just because I feel like I'm in a safe space right now.

SPEAKER_03

What gets lost so often from conversations uh about it's either uh fertility, sometimes it's athletic performance, sometimes it's just hormones in general when it comes to hormonal contraceptives is it's for contraception. And it's a very effective contraceptive. And from my perspective, telling teenage girls not to take advantage of an effective contraceptive is a problem. That's not the road that we should be going down. But if I can to leave that aside for a minute, when we think about the fear that's kind of being propagated around it, it's usually to say, well, it's going to shut down your natural hormone production. True. But that's not problematic. It's designed to do that because again, the goal is contraception. And so when we have these natural endogenous hormone fluctuations throughout the menstrual cycle, it's to prepare for implantation, to prepare for pregnancy. And if that doesn't happen, then we menstruate and we repeat the cycle. And so when you add in these low-dose hormones for which we have a lot of data, they've been around for a long time. And they've the iterations of them are such that doses have been able to get lower and lower and lower while still being effective to prevent pregnancy. And we're not seeing long-term effects on fertility and not seeing effects on athletic performance or body composition, or they're also used for people who are having really painful menstrual symptoms, and that can be an effective solution for that. And I people are often saying, well, that's just masking the problem. Well, the problem is symptoms that are associated with menstruation. And so if we can address those, that's like saying, I'm gonna give you ibuprofen to help with your cramps. Are you just masking the problem? Yeah. We're addressing the problem. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And life is exponentially better.

SPEAKER_03

Right. In the the exercise space, uh about half of women, maybe more when you think about more elite athletes, are on uh hormonal contraceptive.

SPEAKER_00

We did a study with Florida State University with Mike Ormstree's lab, and we had 700 collegiate athletes participate, and about half were on hormonal birth control or hormonal contraceptive, whatever you want to call it. So, yeah, that that that seems to be probably, I think, a really accurate kind of take that although I think it is decreasing. Um that study was five years ago, and just with all of the loud, you know, screaming that you know this is really bad for you, I think people are are trying to um approach it more naturally, um which isn't a bad thing necessarily, certainly if you don't have any symptoms, you know, negative symptoms associated with the menstrual cycle. But I think the follow-up question to that is so uh also the same individuals who are promoting MRT are also saying that you shouldn't go on hormonal birth control during paramenopause to deal with those symptoms. Can you make that can that make sense?

SPEAKER_03

It doesn't make sense because it's uh you know, estradyl or ethanol estradyle, which is the synthetic estro estrogen that that's in the hormonal contraceptive, it's the same. And so, you know, you're either taking that combined with a progesteron, which if you have a uterus, you're taking that as part of menopause hormone therapy as well. The distinction is whether contraception is still relevant or not.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And when you're going through the the menopause transition, at some point people will come off the hormones anyway. And so it's sort of like where are you in your in your journey as opposed to whether contraception is relevant. But uh the the hormones are the hormones.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Um and so it it really doesn't make a lot of sense unless you're saying, oh, well, we want to use something topical or we're thinking about using vaginal estrogen estrogen as opposed to the oral hormonal birth control. That there's a distinction there, but it's not about it being harmful because it's acting systemically. It's acting systemically because that's the intention.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Um you'd think this new sentiment was based on a wealth of data that just came out on people who'd been on birth control for decades and and had all these issues. It doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It's confusing.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

I want you to react to this. Women are not small men. Is there a truth to it?

SPEAKER_03

It is more of a marketing hook than an evidence-based rationale for sex-based training recommendations.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right. And you know, I and I I think when I zoom out, I'm like, gosh, you know, like we got a conversation going, right? Which is awesome. But I think as an industry, there is always this gross overindex. And I think that's what we're we're trying to come back to the middle on right now, is that oh, women are not small men. So we just need a completely different training protocol, we need completely different uh eating window timings, we need completely different uh recovery protocols, we need different, different, different what do we actually need to do differently as women as it relates to becoming fitter and healthier?

SPEAKER_03

Instead of saying men and women are different, because a statement women are not small men is always followed by, and therefore this is what you as a woman must do differently. Of course, men and women are different. But the question is what is the degree to which that should inform differences in how we eat or train? Because I could say blondes are not brunettes, or lawyers are not architects, or short people are not tall. Well, do they need to train differently? We're just stating a difference. The difference doesn't necessarily drive what is relevant in terms of our performance or how we adapt to exercise. Now, when we talk about men and women, obviously the hormonal differences are going to come up. And we've known so much about testosterone for so long. However, our understanding of the importance of testosterone has changed over time. Right. When I got into this space, I was definitely interested in asking some of these questions because I'm a woman. I was working with a lot of women at the time, and I'm looking at some of the literature, thinking, well, a lot of this is in men. And so when we think about what was happening 15-ish years ago, we were at a point where, especially in the resistance training space, we did need to replicate some of the studies that had initially been done in men, and we needed to explore some of these more female-specific questions. It's not that the hypotheses weren't worth having, but we have to revisit that in the current landscape with the current body of literature. And what we see is a lot of the outcomes that worked for men in these interventions work very similarly for women. And we know that because scientists all over the world have done the work. And so, like I said, it's not that we shouldn't have the hypotheses, it's not that we shouldn't do the research, but when we get the results, then that messaging needs to be adjusted. It needs to evolve with the science. And that is the hallmark of good science and being a honest scientist. We don't dig in with what we hope the outcome will be.

SPEAKER_00

You're always trying to prove yourself wrong.

SPEAKER_03

And when I did work with menstrual cycle phase, I know I was really interested in the what's going on in estrogen and muscle, because we didn't have a lot of work in there. We did have some interesting rodent data. And in some ways, it would have been really exciting if it had translated to humans.

SPEAKER_00

Estrogen is being protective potentially in some way towards muscle. What was the estrogen connection that you were really interested in? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Well uh so at the time there were a couple of questions. One would be estrogen is somehow uh protective or kind of recovery boosting because women have some of this magical kind of capacity potentially. And the rodent data, to be fair, is really interesting because you see, oh, there are estrogen receptors on satellite cells, and then well, satellite cells are involved in recovery and repair, and so would women be able to train more frequently, or um, can women do more damaging exercise and recover? And I mean, that's a huge leap. But that was the kind of conversation that was going on. And the other side of that was um, is there something sort of anabolic about estrogen? Right. And that's where the cycle sinking stuff comes in, where people think Oh, that that's where it came from.

unknown

Damn.

SPEAKER_03

So the idea is that well, you know, it this is going to be a more anabolic environment, so you should really resistance train while estrogen is highest.

SPEAKER_00

And just didn't pan out.

SPEAKER_03

Doesn't pan out. And I I did the the rigorous hard work of all that cycle tracking and all those blood hormones and all those muscle biopsies.

SPEAKER_00

And um This is your PhD thesis.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And there's no difference. And this should be good news.

SPEAKER_00

It's interesting because people get so angry about it. Well, I it's phenomenal. It just takes all the confusion, you know, all the you don't have to think about it, right? Just go on how you feel. If you feel good, train. Yes. Boom. That's it, right?

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

It's like literally that simple. At the deepest physiological level that we can go, there's no difference. And that again, how we talked about the menopause transition and lived experience. I'm not dismissing anybody who has severe menstrual cycles symptoms. I'm not dismissing endometriosis, I'm not dismissing PMOS. But all of that points to individuality.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And so, you know, I could ask a thousand women when do you feel strongest throughout your menstrual cycle? Menstrual cycle meaning from day one of my period to day one of my next period. And I will get answers across the board. Day one, I always PR. Day one, I feel terrible. I can barely even go to the gym, and everything in between. And so what that tells us is how you feel will absolutely vary from one woman to the next, even in some cases in the same woman from cycle to cycle. But what do we do? We auto-regulate. We have some component of individualization that allows for that, or we decide that we're gonna power through. And you know, that's why Olympic medals have been won in every menstrual cycle phase. You can totally.

SPEAKER_00

I it's so funny because I carried so much guilt when I left collegiate coaching. I, you know, I was a double sport athlete in the Big Ten. I played on the US national team for seven years. I had I had, you know, coach Jerry Martin. I had some of the best strength engagement coaches in the world, right? Like training across collegiate U.S. And then at Princeton, Jason Gucci was phenomenal. We did the same thing as the guys.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

Like literally the same exact thing. I leave that, you know, those three kind of experiences, and then I start hearing every, you know, all of this chatter, like, and I was like guilt-ridden. I'm like, I've been training them just like men. And I was trained just like a guy. Like, was I leaving games on the table? Like the answer is no.

SPEAKER_03

And that's a perfect example of why that marketing is so effective. Because it makes it seem like, well, I you you've been doing it wrong. You know, I have you're even me, like I was and now I can unlock it for you. And this is the the secret. I mean, it sounds like it makes sense. Totally. There are menstrual cycle phases, and these hormones do fluctuate, and they don't happen in men. So it's a compelling pitch. It is. And it makes it much harder to kind of push back against it. Even though it, you know, I don't have a personal investment either way. It's just the science isn't science. Totally. But when you say it doesn't matter, then people don't like that. People want people want to know that there's some secret. People want to. It's weird.

SPEAKER_00

It's like you should just feel relieved. And like I was so relieved. I'm like, this just uncomplicates everything.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. It's so freeing.

SPEAKER_03

And that's the that's true with so many of the resistance training variables as well, right? The fact that we can get very similar results from machines and free weights. The fact that we can train in high or moderate or low rep ranges, the fact that there's no must-do exercise, you can always pick something else if you that's great. Because that means we're decreasing the barriers. Resistance training is more accessible to people, and that should be good news.

SPEAKER_00

Such good news.

SPEAKER_03

And the the narrative around all of this, in my from my perspective, it really does just create more barriers. Anything that's, well, you're a woman, and so you shouldn't do it like that, or you have to do it like this, or because of menopause, things that worked for you five years ago, throw that out and do something else. It's bad messaging because the result is either people don't engage in fitness at all, or they throw out something that they were doing consistently that they enjoyed. That they loved.

SPEAKER_00

What do you find? You know, you work with tons of folks, and obviously you're online, you hear the chatter. What do you think people tend to throw out that they love based on all of the chatter and information? I'll tell you what, I almost threw out, and then I looked at the data and I realized that I'd be crazy to do that. So but I'd love to hear what your thoughts are.

SPEAKER_03

Running zone two training. Oh, that's I mean too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, when I I love just the long, slow jog a couple times a week. I just find it incredibly recovery promoting and in and indeed looking, I haven't published these data yet, but it's wild in our data set. When we control for kind of you know, sleep inconsistency, some of the other confounders, alcohol that you know could really disrupt your resting physiology at night. When we control for those things, zone two is just magic. You know, I just wrote a book and and I and I I put in there, I was like, zone two is not even exercise. I I just think of it as a recovery modality. You know, and I feel like that uncomplicates a lot of the the dialogue out there, you know, that it's is if we think about it more as a recovery-generating modality, it kind of like gets us away from like, oh, this is an exercise, you know, that we need to be thinking about. But talk more about zone two. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I think for anyone who enjoys going for a jog or really doing fit any physical activity of any kind, we we any messaging that demonizes that is totally missing the mark because we need more people moving. It whether they're that's at the gym or doing what they consider structured exercise or just moving in general. So anything physically active that you enjoy that you'll do regularly, let's be cheerleaders of that. And the messaging around zone two being somehow bad for women is typically saying, well, it increases your cortisol. Okay. All exercise increases your cortisol, including very high-intensity exercise, including resistance training. Right. Including uh literally any type of exercise, we're gonna get an increase in cortisol by design. It's supposed to increase. Okay, so that doesn't work. We uh women are losing um muscle mass and losing bone mass, and so this is going to make you skinny fat, or it's gonna turn your bones into chalk. These are the kind of messages that I hear about it. Not true. Not to say that if you are jogging, you shouldn't also be doing some resistance training. There is no substitute for strength training, but we don't necessarily throw out the zone two because there are many health benefits, both physiologically and psychologically, associated with that exercise as well. And so anything that you enjoy is what we should be encouraging. And there's no harmful effects that are female specific. Right.

SPEAKER_00

Pilates, high-intensity training, what are your thoughts in terms of like the junk kind of zone three?

SPEAKER_03

Well, I I think the question is who's tracking their heart rate and why? So let's ask that. Because a lot of the people who are consuming messaging like this either are not tracking their heart rate or maybe shouldn't be tracking their heart rate because it they're kind of in that newbie, let's just start doing something, do it consistently. There's a time and a place for heart rate tracking and heart rate zones, but the zone model comes from endurance athletes trained for competition. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

But I'm so happy you said that. Because there I think people need to understand that a lot of this discussion and modeling and the you know, the excruciating detail that we approach training is based off of elite athletes who have very, very, very specific performance goals. Yes. Not everyone else.

SPEAKER_03

Right. And zone two training is the kind of bread and butter of the endurance athlete because you can do a lot of it and still recover. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you're you know, you're doing all these sprint intervals, you can't accumulate the volume and still recover.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And the fact is, there are, you know, when you look at the general population, like there are very few, the norm isn't highly trained.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

And that's what we're talking about here. You know, that a lot of these, you know, details that people get caught up on, they're getting caught up on them when they are not actually in that category of highly trained. And that just those rules don't apply to them. Aaron Powell Right.

SPEAKER_03

And I'll say, well, why you know, why are you tracking your heart rate? And or and they'll say, well, this activity is good because it gets my heart rate up. Well, why are we getting our heart rate up? Because i uh if we're if we're just doing it to do it, then we need to think bigger about what is the long term goal. And training for a a competition tr uh for a particular athletic pursuit, there's a reason that a marathon runner is gonna train drastically different than a power lifter.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Um and so we need to remember that. I think when we're communicating to the general population who's just trying to Be healthy.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And say, hold on, we have way more options here for you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. If you had to basically put a stake in the ground and say, okay, this is actually the most efficacious form of exercise to improve health and longevity, and you can only pick one, you know, what where would you say people should apply their effort and their time?

SPEAKER_03

I mean, I'm a shill for resistance training. I'm a muscle person.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_03

We see you're getting benefits to all systems when you lift weights. And there is no substitute for it. Right.

SPEAKER_00

The return is just massive.

SPEAKER_03

We're getting the added bone benefit. Um we know that muscle is important. We know that being able to kind of move through full range of motion, keep our mobility up is going to matter in terms of maintaining our long-term functional independence. And as muscle mass declines, as our ability to move through those full ranges of motion decline, then that's where we kind of end up in a place where we're no longer aging well.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That said, if you're not willing to lift weights, but you're willing to do something else that's physically active, I'll take it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because when we actually, you know, we throw around that term longevity all the time. It's the biggest buzzword, right? Yeah. But when we look at the people who are actually living the longest, they're just physically active. Right. They probably live in a nicer climate. They they walk regularly. They're not necessarily even doing structured exercise. They're gardening, they're and so I never want to discount that other movement piece. Am I just an active person? Because for the busy person, it's sometimes way more palatable to incorporate that stuff throughout your day and say, I'm gonna take the stairs instead of the elevator and I'm gonna do that regularly. I'm gonna park on the other side of the parking lot and I and I'm gonna do that regularly. And then that's the same thing.

SPEAKER_00

This compounds in such a powerful way, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. I I love that you said that because I think a lot of folks do get hung up on like, I didn't go to the gym for this one hour. But maybe, maybe talk a little bit about how to how to think about the day in that context. Because I think that that's also really empowering. Just be like, hey, you can get a lot of the same benefits of an hour in the gym if you spread it out across the day.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. And I think this is really relevant for people who are going through extremely busy times in their lives as well. You know, think new parents, for example, when you're like, I couldn't possibly get away for the full workout. Well, when we really start to break it down, you can get a lot done in 10 minutes. You know? We and we can start incorporating time-efficient training strategies like supersets or circuits. Yeah. And when we think about just physical activity in general, there are things like going for a walk while you're on the phone, or maybe getting a walking pad if you work at home and you're on virtual meetings all the time. Those things don't feel like you are going to the gym because you don't necessarily have to change and get sweaty and drive there and drive back. And but they do add up, they do count. And I think we can get really stuck on what we think in our minds as an effective workout. Yeah. When the truth is we could have a week of you know, really effective workouts and we check them all off. But if we only did it for a week, that doesn't mean anything in terms of our long-term health. So it's about what you're doing that kind of compounds over time over months and months and years and years, and we uh our ability to adhere to a particular program like a robot is going to wax and wane depending on life stage. And that's okay. Yeah. As long as in our mind we're always doing something active.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you you talk a lot about consistency.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And and that's because that's really that's that's the most important thing, right? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

And I think it gets so lost in so many of these conversations because people say, you know, what exactly should I do? And you know, you can give them this ideal program. But if you don't do it at all, or if you only do it for a few weeks, then we've failed that person.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

You have to meet them where they are. And so that's true if you are trying to create a program for yourself. That's true if you're trying to help someone else start their fitness journey. If we aren't giving people something that is attainable, then we're not being helpful. And then once they've done it for a while, then we can focus on adding in the other layers of complexity or optimization or whatever you want to call it.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right. I love that. So well said. One of the areas we think a lot about here at Whoop is recovery. Um, you know, we have a platform that's you know kind of centered around this idea that recovery matters. How do you think about recovery in terms of as a scientist, um, and then just as someone who is, you know, actively training individuals and trying to help them achieve goals? I guess what's your what's your thesis around recovery?

SPEAKER_03

Well, the degree to which we need to focus on it, it really depends on the overall stress that we're putting on the system. Yeah. Right? So if you have somebody who is just working out a couple of times a week, not a ton of stress on the system, they might not even have to think about recovery.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Versus you have an athlete in season and they're so under-recovered because there's so much systemic stress that they're reaching for any recovery mode modality, even if it's gonna give them 1%. They're getting the ice bath and the massage and anything, right? And then you have everything in between. Yeah. So it the the question is how much overall stress is going on, and then how much do we need to focus on the recovery? And in some cases, it's way more effective to actually adjust the overall volume that we're doing rather than trying to band-aid it up with these recovery strategies that tend not to be super effective.

SPEAKER_00

Totally. I mean, I would say, you know, for moderately to highly trained, to your point, it becomes a little bit more important, maybe. You know, you're doing two sessions a day, like even if there's a psychological benefit to, you know, sticking your feet in cold water, like that's worth it. So you one of the things that I found when I was coaching at Princeton, I was using lots of data, and then certainly while you know, arriving at Whoop, very, very clear that for individuals who, you know, are working out less than an hour, that's gonna have no meaningful impact on how you show up tomorrow. It is the other 23 hours of the day where you're drinking alcohol or you're eating like crap or you're not hydrated, or you're you know, inconsistent with your sleepwake time, or you know, you're eating super late meals, and like that's the stuff that gets in the way of recovery. So I think we often don't think of those things as actual recovery, but they kind of are, right? In terms of like how it impacts how we show up tomorrow. So if we're just to separate the discussion out, so if we were to talk about moderately to highly trained folks, yeah, are there any recovery modalities that stand out based on what you know of the science that are actually really efficacious at moving the needle enough to make a difference? Or is there literally nothing?

SPEAKER_03

There's no strategy that's anywhere near as effective as tweaking your training program and making a smarter program.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay, same more, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because if if you're really, if you're truly feeling underrecovered, then maybe you are starting to get some small kind of nagging injuries, or you're feeling really gonna run down, maybe you're getting sick more often, maybe your sleep is disturbed. There are gonna be these sort of signs in the background.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_03

Um and it's important to listen to those signs. But what we could do, and again, if you're really high-level athlete and you're in a certain phase, then maybe there's nothing you can do about your training. But I think for a lot of the the more recreational, but I would still call them an athlete type person, then it could just be that you you increased your volume too much too quickly, or you've added something novel and you just ramped it up a little bit too much. Because when we're kind of in that phase where we are pretty fit, we've already nailed the consistency, and we're feeling a little too confident, maybe, then we tend to want to really push the boundaries. And I certainly noticed, even just working with people, is there's a huge variability between people in terms of the amount of volume they can handle. The the training frequency, even for you know, certain exercises when we think about lifting weights, there are certain exercises that are going to be more taxing on the system.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You know, if you can deadlift three times per week, you're a rare breed. But but those people exist.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And do we know why some people can take on more volume versus others? Is it is it really genetic? Is it do we have a sense?

SPEAKER_03

Not really.

SPEAKER_00

It's crazy we don't know that, you know. But it is just as obviously being a coach, like you just, yeah, certain athletes are just way more capable of huge amounts of volume versus other athletes just don't respond and adapt well to a lot of volume. It it's crazy how very variable it is.

SPEAKER_03

And in some cases, if let's say you're starting a new training block and you're doing uh sprints and you haven't done sprints for a while, or you're doing RDLs and you haven't done those for a while, then then so we also have to kind of take into account that initial phase of, okay, I'm gonna be a bit sore because I'm doing something new, or I might feel a bit less recovered because I'm doing something new.

SPEAKER_00

Stairs hills crush me. Yeah. Like I'll be like, I hate doing them, and then I'll be like, you know, yeah, it'll be two weeks since I've done them, and I'm like, okay, here I go, you know, and I just can't, I'm always sore.

SPEAKER_03

But you expect that. So it's not gonna put a a red flag of, oh, I need to kind of like there's something wrong here that I need to address. Aaron Ross Powell Reaching for the kind of recovery modalities, they're not harmful, generally speaking, although you know the timing of ice baths, it maybe. Um but I I think more so you're you're less likely to set yourself up for success if you're kind of ignoring what could just be too much volume and trying to supplement that with the recovery modalities because long term it's gonna catch up to you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's so well said. I love it. So one of the things that we do on our platform is we allow women to track their menstrual cycle just so they can have a a better sense of what's happening across you know the month. Um I mean, one thing that we do notice is that there's just a wild amount of variability. It's shocking how variable like women can have you know a 11-day or a 28-day or a 22-day, like the range is crazy. Start there. Okay, so there's the the myth maybe that we follow this kind of 28-day pattern, right? And that's kind of the norm. So maybe why is that not the norm? And and how should sh how should a woman think about their own cycle in terms of what's normal?

SPEAKER_03

So cycle meaning the full cycle from the first day of your period to the first day of the next. Some people think just the menstrual period is a cycle, but we're talking the whole thing. The whole, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So the whole, the whole, uh yeah, so not just menstruation, but like the whole actual cycle, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. So only about 13% of women have a 28-day cycle. But we think about a 28-day cycle because in every you know, medical textbook or if you think that that diagram that you can Google, it's always 28 days. It does not follow that pattern, to be clear. I just the It doesn't. And when we think about menstrual cycle phase, it typically divides that 28 days in half. And then we have ovulation, which separates follicular and luteal phase. And that on that nice diagram always occurs halfway through the cycle. Right. Having actually measured blood hormones and tracked urinary LH and many women across many, many cycles, which is a hell of a short deal. So painful, I will tell you that those hormone fluctuations that you see in that very pretty diagram, I've seen once. Ever, once. The timing and the magnitude of those fluctuations vary so much between people. You've seen it once. I've seen it once that it actually looks like that. The degree to which you get that estradyl spike on you know day nine, and it lasts exactly until day 13, and you're getting a just as large progesterone spike, and then following some people have small hormonal surges. And some people have big ones. And it we have no idea why or what that really means, because people don't measure the hormones across the menstrual cycle. It involves a lot of blood measurements to really get that diagram.

SPEAKER_00

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So that those surges are not a comment on the health of your period. Are we able to correlate that at all? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03

In research, sometimes we'll use and this is debated, but uh the the degree to which progesterone spikes in the luteal phase as an indicator that ovulation occurred.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03

Whereas the luteinizing hormone spike, which is what you can measure in in urine if you get those um fertility like test strips from the drugstore, that is predicting that ovulation will occur.

SPEAKER_00

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_03

Um so you're you're kind of using both of these, but really the only way to determine it is through an ultrasound. So these are all kind of markers for it. But even the the spike in lutinizing hormone, so that that is, you know, quote unquote ovulation, what you'll see is some women have what we would call a fleeting ovulation, meaning you're only getting that positive test for a couple hours, and it's really easy to miss. And for some people, it it's a couple days. So there's variability there. If you do bloods, you'll see some people have this huge spike, and other people it's a kind of smaller spike.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And really that's that's not, it's like either the egg is released and you ovulate or you don't. Right, right. There isn't, um it's not like the bigger the spike, the better. Okay, got it, got it. Um but ovulation can occur earlier. So if we go back to our 28-day cycle, we could have a day nine or a day 10 ovulator, or in that 28-day cycle, we could have a day 20 ovulator. And that's just normal for that woman. What that means is if you're early or late, you have these dissimilar length phases. So when we talk about this messaging of exercise or nutrition adjustments around the cycle based on phase, it starts to become way messier because instead of having two weeks and two weeks, you have one week and three weeks.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Or you might have someone who doesn't have a 28-day cycle and has a 21-day cycle or a 37-day cycle. And so all of that really throws a wrench in these beautiful kind of cookie cutter recommendations or depictions of a quote unquote normal menstrual cycle.

SPEAKER_00

How do you think that's like slowed progress down in terms of helping women understand their bodies better?

SPEAKER_03

I think having conversations around menstruation and normalizing it is a good thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because nobody really did that when I was a teenager. Right. And you it was something you were kind of always trying to hide, and you would never talk about it with your coats. No, no. Having open conversations about it is good. I think everything else that's come along with it is bad because so much of the cycle sinking type messaging will say, you should do yoga and light stretching for this week. Well, that doesn't make any sense. Because now we're giving a blanket recommendation to all women to change a full week of how they're training. The long-term ramifications of or, you know, in some of these models, it'll say, well, you should be doing, you know, lifting for this week and then high intensity interval training for this week, and then Pilates for this week. Well, we're never gonna make any progress in any of those if we keep changing up what we're doing from week to week to week. Right. So all of that messaging around because of this hormone profile, you should feel like this, or you should do this, or you should avoid that. None of that is helpful. And I think it just adds so much more confusion where then people think, oh, if I'm training hard today, I'm doing something wrong.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Another popular thing I I see online is that all women should be taking testosterone. What are your thoughts on that? Well, is testosterone gonna help women build muscle? Is it gonna help them? I think where this messaging is targeted is toward perimenopausal menopausal women. So maybe talk about it from that perspective. And then and then if you can add just some information about for men as well, that would be great around.

SPEAKER_03

Let's start there. Okay. So why and when does testosterone matter? When we think about sex differences, testosterone matters because men go through puberty, and during puberty, the surgeon testosterone coincides with an increase in muscle mass. And so that's why you get two untrained adults, and the man will be more muscular and stronger.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And we can attribute that to testosterone. However, once we start training, the relative gains in muscle size and strength are similar in men with higher and lower testosterone, assuming they're within what is a very wide normal range, and between men and women. So our understanding has evolved. Where it used to think, oh, testosterone is this huge driver of hypertrophy. And during puberty it is, but in response to training, it's a lot less relevant than we once thought. And we see that because men and women are gaining similar relative rates of muscle, despite a 15-fold plus difference in testosterone.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. That's wild. Because I think that that is not how we think about testosterone. You know, just at all.

SPEAKER_03

And and there's there's this sort of misconception that women are always going to be at this huge disadvantage because compared to men, the testosterone levels are so, so, so much lower.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Now that tells us that muscle growth is not dependent on testosterone, and so there are many other things at play physiologically, which is great. Yeah. It means that we're not at a disadvantage. Right. The caveat here is once we start introducing exogenous hormones and we're getting into those superphysiological levels of testosterone, yes, then it makes it matters. Of course. And that can be be helpful for men and for women. Right. And we're talking bodybuilders take.

SPEAKER_00

But those super physiological levels also introduce potential side effects that are like not trivial.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. And so when we get into the the kind of perimenopause testosterone conversation, now what we see is women will start testosterone in women will start to decline. So you look at testosterone on average in your 20s, in your 30s, your forties, your fifties, it's starting to decline. That decline doesn't accelerate across the menopause transition at all.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

So there's that's another misconception. There's n there's no decline in testosterone at menopause.

SPEAKER_00

You see these women online who are like, I took testosterone. You see them like doing their you know later and their like back is all muscular and like, you know, like you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Like, okay, so you're saying that your testosterone caused this muscle gain. Is what is being implied.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And then we're selling testosterone.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Uh Susan Davis, who is in Australia, is an amazing, amazing scientist and expert on this topic. But she's done great work in this space. And testosterone can be helpful for low sexual desire. And that is sort of what it has shown in the in the research. That's put why people are prescribing it in an evidence-based way. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Now so for libido.

SPEAKER_03

So for okay, at low levels, then low doses. The goal is to sort of mimic what would be a physiologic level.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

When we think about the levels required for us to get muscle growth beyond what we would otherwise get from training, then we're getting into those levels that are much, much, much, much higher. And if we do, then we're potentially getting unwanted facial hair, back hair, acne, clitoral enlargement, voice deepening, some of which cannot be reversed. Wow. So we don't. Want high levels of exogenous testosterone in women. And we would have to go there if we wanted the muscle benefits. So if you're taking the low levels, which you should be, if you're taking it for low sexual desire, then you're not getting the muscle benefits. If you're taking the high levels, then you're risking all of these potentially unwanted side effects.

SPEAKER_00

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I mean the amount of misinformation just around testosterone alone is mind-blowing.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Mind-blowing. I I can't even imagine how many women have been impacted by this in a negative way.

SPEAKER_03

Aaron Ross Powell And when you look at a lot of common threads and stuff online, people will say, oh, just lie to your doctor and tell them that you have a low libido because you can get it for the body composition better.

SPEAKER_00

Because I this this isn't like um something you want to mess around with. Right?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Like what are people doing? It's just we're just desperate or what what is the what what I I just don't understand how we could be so cavalier with these exogenous compounds that uh uh have like real side effects. Right. In in in massive intra-individual variability.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

On an uneducated individual around this topic would just maybe wouldn't be aware that what was good for her isn't good for me, right? Like in my my age, my fitness levels, my diet, my sleep. I mean, there's so many variables that impact what the doses should be for me. Right. And none of that is being taken into consideration from what I can understand. What I can see.

SPEAKER_03

That's true. And people are going to these other kind of sources that maybe don't even ha have their full health history because they're just trying to get access to it. Right. And it it it's really interesting because when you think about, you know, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, uh, taking exogenous hormones or injecting yourself with peptide drugs, this was sort of a bodybuilder locker room thing, or maybe a niche biohacker thing. And now we're living in a time where the whole thing it's very, very normalized. And people are very open to self-experimentation. And it's one of the scarier things uh about the the industry right now.

SPEAKER_00

Aaron Ross Powell It's different experimenting with um compression boots versus like hormones.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I think that's where we've just taken this leap, but that seems a little wild.

SPEAKER_03

And I think with some of this, because the use of semaglotide and other GLP1s is so kind of ubiquitous and injecting oneself with those is normalized that people kind of equate some of these other less studied substances as sort of similar to that.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Okay, so bottom line, we don't need to be taking exogenous testosterone to build muscle in perimetopause and menopause.

SPEAKER_03

No, and I I wouldn't recommend doing so because the levels you would need in order for it to be effective come with some very serious unwanted side effects. Right. And more importantly, we know that good training builds muscle. Right. Yeah, pre- and post-menopause.

SPEAKER_00

For men and for women.

SPEAKER_03

For men and for women, regardless of menopausal status. It's we just need effective training. And we need to also remember that if we are constantly chasing fat loss or weight loss, then we're not primed for muscle building. So many women have both goals. They want to gain muscle and they want to lose body fat. And you can do that to a degree, but if you are in a substantial calorie deficit, you can't expect to put on a lot of muscle mass because the physiological environment isn't set up for that. Yeah. So in my ideal world, I would say, give me six months, nine months, even a year, maintain your weight, really focus on building muscle mass, and then focus on the fat loss. Because I think when we're just constantly chasing weight loss, you never end up really getting those body compositions changes that you're after.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. That's such a great point. And I think the the thing I keep hearing certainly today, but just in all the conversations, that just in the way you come across, like your narrative arc is one there, it it there are no shortcuts. Yeah. So we just talk a little bit more about that. Because I, you know, I you you you're so articulate in in terms of how you think about uh about consistency and and kind of showing up for yourself and and all that. But what would be your advice to someone who like I I think we still believe that there's a quick fix. Yeah. Like there's still this magic bullet. Like, you know, there like there's this like I we just want it so desperately. I think we just allow, we just can dupe ourselves into like believing that. Maybe just help someone shift their mindset away from that.

SPEAKER_03

If there was a secret quick fix, it wouldn't be a secret. So anyone promising you that is being dishonest. Because when you know, GLP1s are a perfect example of that. As soon as it was approved for obesity, it was everywhere. Everyone knew about it, everyone was excited about it. And so when something works, it's not a secret.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And adaptations like muscle growth take time. If you're lucky, a really, really small amount in two months.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um when you're when you're really working at it and you're showing up and you're showing up and you're so it it's a long game. And also I think when we focus too much on the physique, the aesthetic, kind of as our only outcome, then we get a little bit lost in the sauce and we're less likely to stick with it long term. You get discouraged. Yes. Yeah. And and we're so driven by the way we look instead of what we can do. And I can tell you we're gonna be way more grateful for what we can do down the road.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And so my hope is that when people start lifting weights, that you catch the bug because there's something really empowering about witnessing yourself get stronger.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And thinking, wow, look how much more I can do this month than I could do two months ago. And that can be really empowering, that can keep you coming back.

SPEAKER_00

I I love that. And and I and I think what you're tapping into is just like figuring out your why, you know, which obviously as coaches, we know that that's so important. And but I think that that step is often skipped, and that's why we don't see retention, you know, and and we do see a lot of attrition in in people who are engaging in these programs. And um, but I think the hopefully the message is heard that you're not gonna find some sort of like secret in some corner of the internet that no one has known before that's gonna totally transform your body.

SPEAKER_03

No. And when we talk about the benefits of exercise, and people will kind of tune this out, but when you really think about it, if I said, you know, do this thing, and you're going to increase your lifespan and decrease your risk of diabetes and decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease and decrease your risk of all these cancers and improve your cognitive health and increase your ability to live well and independently for longer. I mean, what other drug or supplement or activity has that many benefits?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, none.

SPEAKER_03

Like we would all be taking it if that was a drug. Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, it's so well said. And, you know, sometimes what do you say to the, and I and I think that um that list of of whys, you know, is um is, you know, probably really compelling for the 48, you know, to kind of 60-year-old or whatever. What do you say to the 28-year-old who, you know, just again, like is trying to figure out, all right, how do I, I need to consistently train, but I'm having, I'm struggling to figure out my why. You know, like what's the motivation for that person? Because it's hard for them to think about like, oh, lifting my grandkids like up when I'm, you know, it's just not that compelling of a it's not a motivating factor for those folks.

SPEAKER_03

That's true. Yeah, you know, I think that strength gains and kind of competition with oneself can be a good motivator. The body composition changes can also be a good motivator. Because I I my hope is that they kind of work in concert. You know, maybe you you get into it because you know you're supposed to for health, but then you start to really enjoy it because there's something about when you keep showing up and you watch yourself progress that is motivating, or maybe you get into it because you want to look better in a dress, but the same thing happens where you you really feel like, oh, you know, being it's not just about showing up and spending 30 minutes and leaving, it's about beating your former self.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right. Yeah. I I think too, one of the things that I would always say to my my student athletes is that you can look a certain way on the outside, but obviously internally, you know, that's kind of the scorecard that really matters, you know, is that internal kind of fitness. And when you think about this notion of internal fitness, there's obviously lots of ways to kind of measure um how you're traveling, right? Like, um, are there any uh blood panels that you think are particularly helpful or any biometrics that you think are, you know, helpful for someone who who might need that kind of motivation to kind of help them see, you know, because some of the adaptations externally come slow, but if you're like, oh damn, my resting heart rate like decreased, like I started doing more high, you know, more interval work, or you know, oh wow, you know, like my variability improved. Like, is do you think about it in those terms at all?

SPEAKER_03

I think it depends on the person. Yeah. If you're somebody who loves data, then yeah, go for it. Um but also don't get too tied to numbers like that. You know, people will say, oh, should I get a DEXA every six months or something like that? And I'm like, ugh, I don't because if maybe it's not going to show an improvement and I don't want that to derail someone. That's a good idea. So we kind of have to, it's a bit of a push and pull where the data is good, but we don't want to get so dependent on that as our only measure of success. We have to think bigger picture as well. And I think the just mental health benefits of exercise as well, we don't talk about those enough. And it, you know, regardless of what's going on in your life, just getting that workout in can make your day just improve, the stress level decrease, you just feel better.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm glad you called that out. I there was a really interesting study, I don't know when this was published, but it looked at a cohort of men. Um, and I don't know where they're, you know, maybe they were mildly depressed or had, you know, some sort of mental health maybe issues in the past, but started strength training two times a week, I think for just like 20 minutes. Yeah. And they saw great increases in just their overall kind of mental health over the course of six months, I think. Um just tw two 20-minute sessions was like what it took. Um, so to your point, you know, I I think there is like, yeah, there's just outsized benefits to exercise, right? And and nothing that and there's no medication that you know can replace those benefits.

SPEAKER_03

And that's a perfect example of how low a dose can be beneficial. We see benefits in all spheres from a two 20-minute sessions per week.

SPEAKER_00

Smile.

SPEAKER_03

So and that's really attainable for people. Right. So to realize like, wait, you know, I I don't need to overhaul my whole schedule. If I can just get that in, if I can just start there. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And you get, I think to your earlier point, you know, like that becomes like like once you start that, it's kind of a this positive flywheel. You know, a lot of other things start to happen that are positive in your life, and you, you, you know, you kind of are more inclined maybe to move more. And you know, all of a sudden, before you know it, you're in a routine where you're working out five days a week, you know.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and but for me, I prefer to go more frequently for shorter because I I I get it's like I get that hit that helps for my kind of mental health, but I also I find that you know I can recover more easily and it and it keeps the routine going because I'm going regularly.

SPEAKER_00

It's the same, like I try to lift every day, you know, and and but sometimes those sessions are 17 minutes, you know, the other times there may be 38 minutes, you know. But I just try to like, all right, I'm just gonna do a little jump, do a little something, you know, and I and that really does make me feel consistent. It makes me mentally like there's just so many positive benefits. You know, am I progressing my training perfectly all the time?

SPEAKER_03

No, but that doesn't even matter, I don't think, in the end, you know, like showing up is way more important than literally anything else.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well said. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to just make sure people hear? We've got a lot of engaged listeners, you know, who really, really care deeply about their health, you know, and and um are victims uh of misinformation. You know, what what do you what can you what do you want to leave with them?

SPEAKER_03

Educational content shouldn't make you feel afraid or confused. So keep that in mind when you're on the internet.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. That's such a a perfect frame.